TALLAHASSEE MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE, INC.
v.
CHERELLE DUKES
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Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare challenged a discovery order requiring it to produce Chart Access Audit records for three employees in a whistleblower suit. The First DCA held that an audit for Stacy Bender was improperly ordered because no allegations in the complaint involved her, but audits for the other two employees were appropriately ordered, though the scope should have been limited to days the respondent worked.
The court held that the audit for Stacy Bender was improperly ordered because Dukes made no allegations against her in the complaint. However, audits for Haskett and Rodriguez were appropriately ordered based on Dukes's allegations. The court held that the scope of those audits should have been limited to only the days Dukes worked during the six-month period.
[1] Discovery requests must relate to the issues involved in the litigation as framed in all pleadings.
[2] A trial court departs from the essential requirements of law by compelling discovery of employee audit records when the employee's alleged misconduct is not pleaded.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“It is axiomatic that information sought in discovery must relate to the issues involved in the litigation, as framed in all pleadings.”
Establishes the fundamental principle governing the scope of discovery; the court used this to reject the audit for Stacy Bender.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceCherelle Dukes, a former employee, filed a whistleblower suit against Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare alleging violations of HIPAA. In her Second Amen…
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FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
STATE OF FLORIDA _____________________________
No. 1D17-3737 _____________________________
TALLAHASSEE MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE, INC.,
Petitioner,
v. CHERELLE DUKES, Respondent.
_____________________________
Petition for Writ of Certiorari—Original Jurisdiction.
March 8, 2018 PER CURIAM.
Petitioner, Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Inc., filed a petition for writ of certiorari, challenging a discovery order compelling it to provide Respondent, Cherelle Dukes, with Chart Access Audit records for three of its employees in a lawsuit filed by Respondent, a former employee, under Florida’s private sector Whistleblower’s Act. We agree with Petitioner that the trial court departed from the essential requirements of the law in compelling an audit for Stacy Bender given that neither the Second Amended Complaint nor any other pleadings filed by Respondent alleged that Bender committed violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”). See Krypton Broad. of Jacksonville, Inc. v. MGM-Pathe Commc’ns Co., 629 So. 2d 852, 854 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993) (“It is axiomatic that information sought
2
in discovery must relate to the issues involved in the litigation, as framed in all pleadings.”), disapproved of on other grounds in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Langston, 655 So. 2d 91 (Fla. 1995).
As for audits ordered by the trial court for Tiana Haskett and Jasmine Rodriguez, Respondent made allegations in the Second Amended Complaint that she, on multiple occasions, observed both women access patients’ personal health information on Petitioner’s computers where medical staff authorized to access the information were logged in and discussed the information in violation of HIPAA. Because the discovery at issue relates to the issues as framed by Respondent’s allegations, the trial court appropriately ordered audits as to Haskett and Rodriguez. However, we agree with Petitioner that the trial court should have limited the scope of those audits to only the days on which Respondent worked for Petitioner during the six-month period at issue as Respondent’s alleged observations could only have been made on the days she was working. See Scully v. Shands Teaching Hosp. & Clinics, Inc., 128 So. 3d 986, 989 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (holding that the trial court departed from the essential requirements of the law by not limiting the scope of the records at issue to a period more temporally-related to the claims).
Accordingly, we DENY the certiorari petition in part, GRANT the petition in part, and QUASH the order under review in part.
B.L. THOMAS, C.J., and LEWIS and MAKAR, JJ., concur.
_____________________________ Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331.
_____________________________
Brandice D. Dickson and S. Austin Cattani of Pennington, P.A., Tallahassee, for Petitioner. Marie A. Mattox, Tallahassee, for Respondent.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Allstate Ins. Co. v. Langston, 655 So. 2d 91 (Fla. 1995)
- Krypton Broad. OF Jacksonville, Inc. v. Mgm-Pathe Commc'ns Co., 629 So. 2d 852 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993)
- Scully v. Shands Teaching Hosp. & Clinics, Inc., 128 So. 3d 986 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)