Marte v. Brooklyn Hosp. Ctr.

PRIVILEGE OF INTERNAL SECURITY DOCUMENTATION

Marte v. Brooklyn Hosp. Ctr., No. 4577/02 (N.Y. App. Div. Nov. 21, 2003)

A
woman sued a hospital for negligence after a man entered her hospital room
and attempted to sexually assault her. She argued that the hospital’s security
was negligent in allowing the man to remain in the patient ward after visiting
hours had ended. In preparation for trial, the woman requested several
documents related to the hospital’s security, including: incident reports involving
the attempted assault, incident reports and records of rape and sexual
assault and other crimes for the three years prior, security complaints received
from visitors, internal memoranda regarding security measures, copies of
internal investigation documents, and visitor logs for the date in question.
The hospital claimed that these materials were privileged under the state
Education Law and Public Health Law. The New York Supreme Court, Appellate
Division, found that the documents were not entitled to a blanket privilege
since there was no evidence that any of that information had been generated
as part of a report to the Department of Health, as required by the Public
Health Law.