Court reviews whether state or federal law protects hospital records from disclosure.

JOHN P. KONVALINKA v. CHATTANOOGA-HAMILTON COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY (Tenn. Ct. App. October 4, 2010)

This is the second time this case, filed by John P. Konvalinka ("the Petitioner") to force disclosure of public documents, has been before us. In the trial court's order that generated the first appeal, the court held that the records the Petitioner requested from Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority ("the Hospital" or "Erlanger") were exempt from disclosure under state law, and pretermitted the question of whether they were exempt from disclosure under federal law.

On appeal, we held that the records were not protected from disclosure by state law and remanded for a determination of whether they were protected from disclosure by federal law. The Hospital attempted on remand to assert additional state law defenses to disclosure. The trial court held that the new state law defenses were outside the scope of the remand. It also held that federal law did not protect the documents at issue from disclosure. Accordingly, it ordered the Hospital to produce the documents. The Hospital appeals challenging both aspects of the trial court's judgment. We affirm.

Opinion may be found at:
http://www.tba2.org/tba_files/TCA/2010/konvalinkaj.pdf