Picard v. Am. Bd. of Family Med. (Summary)

DUE PROCESS, TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE

Picard v. Am. Bd. of Family Med., No. 13–cv–14552 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 9, 2014)

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss filed by the American Board of Family Medicine (“ABFM”) in a lawsuit filed by a physician alleging violation of common law due process, defamation, and tortious interference with a business relationship and contract.

In 1998, the physician obtained ABFM board certification.  For certification, ABFM requires all medical licenses held by a physician to be currently valid, full, and unrestricted.  In 2011, the physician, a recovering drug and alcohol addict, suffered a relapse and self-reported the incident to Michigan’s Health Professional Recovery Program.  The physician completed a recovery program, but, due to a “paperwork glitch,” his file with the recovery program was closed and this resulted in his license being inappropriately suspended for four months.  The Michigan Board of Medicine reversed the suspension and reinstated the physician’s license.  It also required the physician to participate in a monitoring agreement with the recovery program.

Before the reversal of the license suspension by the Michigan Board of Medicine, the ABFM revoked the physician’s board certification.  Notwithstanding the reversal, the ABFM refused to reinstate the physician’s board certification because it determined that the monitoring agreement violated its certification requirements, specifically its policies on professionalism.

The physician was not initially informed of termination until he gained employment with a new hospital in 2012.  The physician’s employment was subsequently terminated because he was denied board certification.

The physician then sued the ABFM, which responded with a motion to dismiss.  With respect to the due process and tortious interference claims, the court denied ABFM’s motion to dismiss.  The court held that since ABFM certification was essential to the physician’s practice and could significantly affect the physician’s profession, ABFM had a fiduciary duty to be substantively, rationally and procedurally fair when deciding whether to grant certification.  Based on allegations in the complaint that ABFM had failed to provide the physician with due process, the court found that the physician had stated a colorable claim for a violation of common law due process.

The court also held that the physician had stated a claim for tortious interference because he had alleged that ABFM was aware of his relationship with his current employer and maliciously denied him certification, notwithstanding his satisfaction of certain criteria, and that this denial cost the physician his job.

The court granted ABFM’s motion to dismiss the defamation claims, finding that the first claim was barred by the one-year statute of limitations and the second was based on ABFM’s opinion and, since the opinion was grounded on disclosed facts, a third party could assess the facts and determine the truth or falsity of ABFM’s opinion.  With respect to the third, fourth and fifth claims relating to defamation, the court determined that the communication was privileged since it was only published to the physician’s attorney on the physician’s request.