Commercial Litigation Update

Background

On December 10, 2024, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its decision in Stull v. Summa, a medical negligence case in which the defendants argued that Ohio’s statutory peer-review privilege protected from discovery the file a hospital maintained on a resident physician, which included, among other things, quality reviews and assessments of the resident’s clinical competency and professional conduct. The Supreme Court of Ohio decided one issue: Does the peer-review privilege in R.C. 2305.252 apply to a healthcare entity’s files concerning resident physicians?

This case arose from the medical treatment of head injuries that the patient sustained during a car crash. The patient and his guardians filed a medical negligence lawsuit against the hospital and its employed healthcare professionals, including a resident physician who participated in the patient’s care. The plaintiffs alleged that the resident improperly intubated the patient, causing the patient to sustain a brain injury