LEE MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEM v. Smith

SILBERMAN, Judge.

Lee Memorial Health System (LMHS) seeks certiorari review of the order granting Jeffrey and Melissa Smith’s pretrial motion for protective order and prohibiting LMHS from having certain ex parte communications with its employee physicians. The question we must decide today is whether the circuit court departed from the essential requirements of the law by relying on the physician-patient privilege in section 456.057(8), Florida Statutes (2009), to preclude communication between LMHS and its physicians. We conclude that the physician-patient privilege does not apply to LMHS’s…