Blue Cross of Northern California v. Superior Court

In Rudnick v. Superior Court, 11 Cal.3d 924 [ 114 Cal.Rptr. 603 , 523 P.2d 643 ], the Supreme Court delineated the boundaries of the physician-patient privilege in its application to medical histories in the files of a drug manufacturer. Here we confront the privilege in relation to patients’ identities and ailments recorded in the claim files of a prepaid health care plan.

Carolyn Blair, the real party in interest, was enrolled in a prepaid health care plan operated by Blue Cross of Northern California, a nonprofit corporation. She brought suit against Blue Cross, charging it with wrongful refusal to pay medical expenses she had incurred for psoriasis treatment. As a means of pretrial discovery, she propounded interrogatories, one of which sought the names, addresses and telephone numbers of other Blue Cross subscribers who had filed claims for psoriasis treatment. Blue Cross objected to the interrogatory, claiming overbreadth and privilege. The trial court sustained the first ground of objection and narrowed the inquiry of two branch offices of Blue Cross. It overruled the assertion of privilege and rejected a protective order which Blue Cross had proposed in order to…