Looney v. Moore (Summary)

PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE

Looney v. Moore, No. 2:13-CV-00733-KOB (N.D. Ala. May 12, 2014)

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama denied a motion filed by class action plaintiffs seeking to compel the University of Alabama Birmingham (“UAB”) to produce records created by its institutional review board (“IRB”) in connection with a clinical research trial performed on premature infants with low birth weights.  The parents of the infants in the clinical research trial sued members of UAB’s IRB, claiming they were negligent and did not obtain informed consent.  In denying the motion, the court held that Alabama’s statutory peer review privilege applied to the IRB and the documents at issue were privileged because they involved quality assurance review.  The court also concluded that the state peer review privilege was not preempted by federal statutes and regulations governing IRBs because these sources made no mention of civil discovery, much less the peer review privilege.