Scripps Health v. Superior Court

In this case we conclude that confidential occurrence reports prepared by a hospital were protected by the attorney-client privilege and thus the trial court abused its discretion by ordering such reports be produced during discovery.

Factual and Procedural Background

The heirs of decedent Gerald Reynolds (collectively plaintiffs) sued Scripps Health doing business as Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas (Scripps) for damages for wrongful death arising out of Reynolds’s hospitalizations at Scripps’s facility. During the course of discovery, plaintiffs served written document requests on Scripps seeking “[a]ll records regarding any incidents and/or changes in [the] condition of [Reynolds]” during his stay at the Scripps facility that were not contained in his medical records. Scripps responded to the request by indicating it had five “occurrence reports” that it would withhold based on the attorney-client and work product privileges and the privilege for hospital peer review materials contained in Evidence Code section 1157 (all statutory references are to this code). Scripps supplied a blank occurrence report form and provided a privilege log indicating that hospital…