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Givens v. Mullikin11/28/2000
contracts of confidentiality existed between Plaintiff and her healthcare providers. Defendants cite Mefford, supra, for the proposition that the contract between a healthcare provider and his or her patient is an "implied at law" contract and therefore not actionable under a claim of inducement of breach of contract. While we agree that an implied at law contract is not actionable under the common law or T.C.A. ยง 47-50-109, we disagree with Defendants that the relationship between Plaintiff and her physician is such a contract. In Mefford, the Court described a contract implied in fact:
In Weatherly v. American Agricultural Chemical Co., 16 Tenn.App. 613, 65 S.W.2d 592, we said that contracts implied in fact arise under circumstances which, according to the ordinary course of dealings and common understanding of men, show mutual intention to contract, and may result as legal inferences from the fact and circumstances of the case. And in Noon v. Fisher, D.C., 45 F. Supp. 653, it was stated that the difference between an expressed and implied contract lies merely in the mode of manifesting assent in that in the former, assent is set out in words or other mode of expression, whereas in the latter, assent is shown by the conduct of the parties. Thus it appears that in order that a contract may be implied in fact, the facts and circumstances of the case must show assent. 354 S.W.2d at 826.
On the other hand, an implied at law contract is a quasi contract defined as a:
egal fiction invented by common law courts to permit recovery by contractual remedy in cases where, in fact, there is no contract, but where circumstances are such that justice warrants a recovery as though there had been a promise. Black's Law Dictionary 324 (6th ed. 1990).
The allegations of the complaint are sufficient to set forth an express or implied in fact contract.
Our Supreme Court, in dicta, has indicated that "the only possible sounding" of an action for wrongful disclosure "would be under the allegations that there was an implied contract between the parties. . . ." Quarles, 389 S.W.2d at 252. Given the Quarles court's rejection of a common law cause of action based on a breach of ethical duty, however, the basis for a contractual claim would most likely be a breach of fiduciary duty to maintain doctor-patient confidentiality. See, e.g., Turner v. Leathers, 232 S.W.2d 269, 271 (Tenn. 1950)(noting that confidential and fiduciary relations include the physician-patient relationship); McClellan v. Stanley, 978 S.W.2d 943, 945 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998)(holding that a doctor is his patient's fiduciary, and noting that requiring patients to question their doctors' actions would destroy the trust necessary for proper treatment); Hall v. De Saussure, 297 S.W.2d 81, 86 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1956)(noting that a physician "is in a position of trust and confidence as regards the patient. . . .") Of course, for Plaintiff to recover based on such a contract, she will have to prove the existence of those implied contracts by a preponderance of the evidence. See Mefford, 354 S.W.2d at 826. We hold only that Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged the existence of contracts which, if they exist, meet the requirements of a cause of action for inducing a breach of contract.
As to the remaining elements of an action for inducing breach of a contract, we also find that Plaintiff alleges facts which, if taken as true, could sustain such an action. Plaintiff alleges that the Richardson Firm was aware of the existence of the alleged contracts based upon the widespread use of medical release forms containing similar language to Dr. Holcomb's form, and the existence of the Medical Records Act. Similarly, Pla
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