Medical Privileges in Texas

Today, the Texas Supreme Court handed down an opinion granting a petition for writ of mandamus pertaining to a nursing home’s claim that certain documents were privileged from discovery based on four distinct asserted privileges:

1. the medical committee privilege;
2. the medical peer review committee privilege;
3. the nursing peer review committee privilege; and
4. the quality assessment and assurance privilege.

The Court grants the petition for writ of mandamus, holding that the trial court “abused its discretion by using only superficial indicators to deny Living Centers’s privilege claim as to nearly all the documents at issue.” The Court sets forth the kind of analysis it expects courts to use when applying the privileges at issue, particularly in the nursing home context (and since the court holds that three of the four asserted privileges apply to nursing homes “to the same extent as hospitals,” its analysis would clearly also apply in the hospital context).

Cause No. 04-0176, In RE: Living Centers of Texas, Inc.

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