Recent Developments in Medicine and the Law

This article discusses recent developments in three areas, all of which relate to discovery in medical malpractice cases. The first topic is claims of spoliation in the context of medical malpractice. The second topic is the evolving peer review privilege and its limitation or expansion by state courts. Finally, we discuss two important cases in which state courts have interpreted HIPAA’s privacy rules and applied them in the context of ex parte communications with treating physicians and pre-suit discovery of a plaintiff's medical information.