Hospital’s Peer Review Process Meets Whistleblower Laws.

A hospital terminated a doctor’s staff privileges, using its quasi-judicial peer review procedure. In his tort action against the hospital and others, the doctor claimed he was terminated in retaliation for reporting substandard performance by the hospital’s nurses.  Health and Safety Code section 1278.5, declares it is the public policy of California to encourage members of the medical staff to notify government entities of suspected unsafe patient care and conditions. The trial court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss on the ground that the doctor could not bring an action under section 1278.5 until he succeeded in mandamus in overturning the hospital’s peer review action. Eventually the matter ended up in the California Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held: “We conclude that when a physician claims, under section 1278.5, that a hospital’s quasi-judicial decision to restrict or terminate his or her staff privileges was itself a means of retaliating against the physician ‘because’ he or she reported concerns about the treatment of patients, the physician need not first seek and obtain a mandamus judgment setting aside the hospital’s decision before pursuing a statutory claim for relief. Section 1278.5 declares a policy of encouraging workers in a health care facility, including members of a hospital’s medical staff, to report unsafe patient care. The statute implements this policy by forbidding a health care facility to retaliate or discriminate ‘in any manner’ against such a worker ‘because’ he or she engaged in such whistleblower action. (Health & Saf. Code § 1278.5, subd. (b).) It entitles the worker to prove a statutory violation, and to obtain appropriate relief, in a civil suit before a judicial fact finder.” (Fahlen v. Sutter Central Valley Hospitals (Cal. Sup. Ct.; February 20, 2014) 58 Cal.4th 655, [168 Cal.Rptr.3d 165].)