Anti-SLAPP protects doctor for reporting patient-doctor's opioid use to physician treatment authority

Cindy Shebley CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

A doctor who prescribed opioids for a fellow doctor and ultimately reported the patient-doctor for possible impairment by addiction was protected by anti-SLAPP law when the patient-doctor sued, the Massachusetts Appeals Court held in June.

The two doctors' relationships started when the defendant, a primary care physician, prescribed the plaintiff, an ophthalmologist, Percocet, which contains oxycodone, to manage migraines. In time, the defendant became concerned about the plaintiff's ongoing use of opioids. After unsatisfactory back-and-forth with the plaintiff, the defendant reported his concerns to Physician Health Services (PHS), a nonprofit corporation created by the Massachusetts Medical Society, which in turn is a creation of the legislature. The plaintiff ultimately accepted addiction counseling upon PHS recommendation.

The plaintiff sued the defendant for negligence, tortious interference, civil rights violation, and invasion of privacy. The defendant invoked the Massachusetts anti-SLAPP law, and the court dismissed. The Appeals Court affirmed.

I'm on record as an anti-SLAPP skeptic, while acknowledging that anti-SLAPP laws sometimes facilitate a sound outcome. To my satisfaction, the Massachusetts law is narrow in some key regards, including the requirement that a defendant's conduct must be substantially related to a petitioning to governmental officials. In June 2021, I wrote about the failure of an anti-SLAPP defense when the Appeals Court opined that defendants' alleged extortive expression was not sufficiently closely related to the zoning disposition with which the defendant was alleged to have sought to interfere.

In the instant case, the Appeals Court had little trouble determining that the defendant's reports to PHS were substantially related to government petitioning. Physician peer reporting is required by law upon reasonable belief in a violation of regulation. And it was understood, the court reasoned, that reporting to PHS, which specializes in treatment for drug and alcohol impairment, was an intermediate step that would result in reporting to the state licensing authority if the matter could not be resolved.

"It follows, therefore, that the defendant's communication to PHS regarding his concern about the plaintiff is protected," the court wrote, "unless the plaintiff can show either that the defendant failed to act in good faith or that he had no reasonable belief that the communication furthered the purpose of PHS."

The case is Berk v. Kronlund, No. 22-P-4 (Mass. App. Ct. June 14, 2023) (FindLaw). Justice Kenneth V. Desmond Jr. wrote the opinion of the unanimous panel that also comprised Justices Wolohojian and Blake.