Lee v. Banner Health (Summary)

PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE

Lee v. Banner Health, No. 08CA0665 (Colo. Ct. App. July 9, 2009)

The Colorado Court of Appeals, among other findings, upheld a district court’s decision to dismiss a physician’s claims because he failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required under the Colorado Professional Review Act ("CPRA"). The CPRA requires that parties exhaust their administrative remedies before they bring an action before the court. Specifically, when the claims arise from a peer review process and allege anticompetitive behavior, the CPRA states that a party may not bring his or her action in district court until he or she has exhausted the administrative remedy by filing claims with the Committee on Anticompetitive Conduct.

The physician alleged that the hospital’s actions were outside the scope of this provision, thus relieving him of this requirement, but the court disagreed. First, the court rejected the physician’s contention that the hospital’s conduct was retaliatory in nature, rather than anticompetitive. The court also disagreed with the physician’s allegation that the provision did not apply because the hospital’s peer review process failed to follow procedures set forth in the hospital bylaws. The court stated that the "failure by the hospital to conduct the peer review process in accordance with its bylaws does not mean the hospital was engaged in something other than peer review." The court did find that, to the extent that the invasion of privacy and defamation claims were based on defamatory conduct, these claims were not subject to the CPRA’s exhaustion of administrative remedies requirement.