Ex parte Affinity Hospital, LLC, etc., [Ms. SC-2024-0542, Sep. 27, 2024] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2024). The Court (Sellers, J.; Parker, C.J., and Shaw, Wise, Bryan, Mendheim, Stewart, Mitchell, and Cook, JJ., concur) unanimously denies Affinity Hospital, LLC, d/b/a/ Grandview Medical Center’s (“Grandview”), petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to vacate the Montgomery Circuit Court’s order compelling Grandview to produce information and documents it claims are statutorily privileged, including the requirement that Grandview produce a privilege log in accordance with Rule 26(b)(6)(A), Ala. R. Civ. P.
Grandview claims that the quality-assurance statutes [Ala. Code 1975, § 22-21-8, 6-5-333, and 34-24-58] preclude it from disclosing whether or not the materials sought even exist.” Ms. *6. The Court emphatically rejects this argument:
Grandview makes the blanket assertion that a statutory privilege applies without any judicial oversight, intervention, or review. But that is not the case. ... Moreover, such a view would eliminate trial courts from being the gatekeepers of admissible evidence and could permit, if not encourage, a health-care provider to require that all complaints, reports of incidents of complications, or other incident reports of any kind to be created for a quality-assurance committee and thus become quality assurance materials subject to a claim of statutory privilege. In any event, the law in this State is clear that the determination regarding whether specific materials are privileged is a factual question. See Ex parte Estate of Elliott, 272 So. 3d 1021 (Ala. 2018).”
Ms. **7-8.
The Court also rejects Grandview’s alternative argument that the affidavit of its quality manager was sufficient to preclude the requirement of providing a privilege log and explains “Grandview cannot merely lump together all the information and documents the discovery requests seek and then state that, to the extent that such information or documents exist, they ‘would only derive from quality assurances processes.’ Rather, the burden was on Grandview to provide sufficient information to aid the trial court in determining whether the information and documents sought are in fact privileged. In this case, the affidavit does not even state the information or documents being requested.” Ms. *12.
The Court further holds “the affidavit offered by Grandview was overbroad and failed to expressly identify the specific information and documents that it claimed were privileged, along with any relevant facts demonstrating that the specific information or documents are quality-assurance materials, Grandview could not satisfy its burden of demonstrating that the specific information and documents withheld from discovery were statutorily privileged.” Ms. *14.