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Cannon v. Salt Lake Regional Medical Center8/25/2005
ovide hospitals protection from medical malpractice claims. Consequently, because there is obvious danger in construing the care review privilege too broadly, the privilege naturally has its limits. Moreover, the Cannons also have an important interest in the discovery of evidence, or information that will lead to evidence, that will support their claims. See, e.g., Ellis v. Gilbert, 19 Utah 2d 189, 429 P.2d 39, 40 (1967) (noting the important interest that both courts and litigants have in being able, through discovery, to "determine the facts and resolve the issues as directly, fairly and expeditiously as possible").
CONCLUSION
We conclude that Ms. Wright's affidavit does not conclusively establish that the care review privilege applies to protect the Hospital's incident reports from discovery by the Cannons. The affidavit merely establishes a prima facie showing that the privilege might apply. Given the nature of the parties' competing interests in the discovery, or protection from discovery, of these incident reports, the trial court should not have based its decision on the applicability of the care review privilege solely on Ms. Wright's affidavit. We therefore remand the case to the trial court to conduct an in camera inspection of the incident reports connected to Mr. Cannon's hospital stay in order to gain a proper evidentiary basis on which to make the determination whether these reports are indeed protected from discovery under the care review privilege.
Gregory K. Orme, Judge
I CONCUR:
Russell W. Bench, Associate Presiding Judge
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