Radzik v. Connecticut Children's Medical Center

77 A.3d 823, 145 Conn. App. 668
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedSeptember 17, 2013
DocketAC 34952
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 77 A.3d 823 (Radzik v. Connecticut Children's Medical Center) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Radzik v. Connecticut Children's Medical Center, 77 A.3d 823, 145 Conn. App. 668 (Colo. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Opinion

BISHOP, J.

The defendants, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC), Francisco A. Sylvester and CCMC Faculty Practice Plan, Inc., appeal from the trial court’s order granting the motion of the plaintiff, Paul Radzik, individually and as the administrator of the [670]*670estate of his son, Jonathan Radzik,1 to compel electronic discovery.2 The defendants claim (1) that the discovery order constitutes a final judgment and therefore this court has jurisdiction over the appeal, and (2) that the court abused its discretion in permitting the “imaging” of three personal computers used by Sylvester. We conclude that the discovery order does not constitute a final judgment and, accordingly, dismiss the appeal.

The plaintiff alleged the following facts in his amended complaint. Sylvester, aboard certified specialist in pediatrics who as a servant, agent or employee of CCMC and CCMC Faculty Practice Plan, Inc., treated Jonathan Radzik, a minor, for Crohn’s disease. In the course of such treatment, Sylvester prescribed the drug Remicade, which is administered by intravenous infusion. Jonathan Radzik underwent infusions of Remi-cade at CCMC and under the care and supervision of Sylvester from April, 2003 to October, 2005. In January 2007, Jonathan Radzik died as a result of Hepatosplenic T-Cell Lymphoma (HTCL).

The plaintiff brought the present action in 2009. In his amended complaint, the plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that when Sylvester prescribed Remicade for Jonathan Radzik, he was aware that: “[T]he manufacturer of Remicade had circulated warnings to the medical community that the use of Remicade had been known to cause fatal T-cell lymphomas in patients who were also receiving azathioprine . . . [and that] the type of lymphoma most commonly associated with Remicade treatment was an aggressive and typically fatal variant” and, further, that he had failed to obtain parental permission to prescribe Remicade for Jonathan Radzik. [671]*671The amended complaint also alleged two counts of battery.

In 2009, the plaintiff served interrogatories and requests for production on the defendants, which requested, inter alia: The contents of any investigative files or “any other documentary material” which support the allegations in the action and any information regarding Remicade, which any of the defendants have in their possession. At his August 25, 2010 deposition, Sylvester testified that he understood the term “documents” as used in the plaintiffs 2009 interrogatories to include electronic documents, but that he had not searched his e-mail or e-mail archives for information pertaining to Jonathan Radzik, Remicade and/or HTCL.

On September 28, 2010, the plaintiff filed, a motion to compel discovery, in which he claimed that his requests for production “most certainly embod[y] all electronic documents in the defendants’ possession” and that the defendants have failed to comply with discovery in that they failed to conduct searches for electronic documents stored on the computers of Sylvester and his staff. On October 21, 2010, the plaintiff filed an amended motion to compel discovery. In that motion, the plaintiff stated that despite having requested, via letter dated September 20, 2010, all electronic documents in Sylvester’s possession that contain several specified search terms, Sylvester testified, at the resumption of his deposition on October 7, 2010, that he had only searched one of his two computers using a more narrowed search. In this motion, the plaintiff also highlighted Sylvester’s testimony at the October, 2010 deposition that he possessed a separate electronic library located at St. Francis Research Laboratory (St. Francis) and that a search of this electronic database had not been conducted. The plaintiff requested that the court order, inter alia, that the defendants conduct a search of Sylvester’s work computer, [672]*672personal notebook and/or laptop, all memory storage devices and e-mail databases for all electronic documents relating to this action. The plaintiffs request specified sixteen terms to be utilized in the anticipated search. In response, the defendants objected to the plaintiffs motion to compel on the grounds that it included an extraordinary scope and breadth of demands and that any possible connection between Remicade and HTCL was not known to Sylvester or the community of pediatric gastroenterologists at the time Jonathan Radzik was infused with Remicade.

At the November 29, 2010 hearing on the plaintiffs motion to compel, the court posited: “[T]he critical issue which is behind all this attempted discovery . . . is what did Dr. Sylvester know and when did he find it out? And it may turn out to be inadmissible, but . . . it certainly would be discoverable.” The court stated that it would permit a limited discovery into Sylvester’s computers and asked both parties to “work out a set of search terms that, would lead to discovery of anything on [Sylvester’s] three computers which would tend to reflect what Dr. Sylvester knew and when he knew it.”3

The parties were unable to agree. By motion dated January 10, 2011, the defendants filed a brief renewing their objection to the proposed search and requested that this discovery not be permitted. On January 13, 2011, the defendants filed a motion for reconsideration, requesting the court to reconsider its November 29, 2010 order regarding disclosure of information from Sylvester’s personal and work computers.

The court held another hearing on the discovery issues on January 24, 2011. The court noted that the privacy concerns of having a third party conduct the [673]*673searches was “enormous” and suggested that staff at CCMC and St. Francis conduct the searches. The court concluded: “I’m not issuing any specific orders that anybody has to do anything today. My prior orders are vacated.”

In March, 2011, the defendants filed a supplemental memorandum of law regarding the production of electronic documents. In that motion, the defendants’ counsel reported that the parties had reached a partial agreement under which CCMC would conduct a search of Sylvester’s e-mail account using certain specified search terms, but objected to the plaintiff’s request that any documents found be produced “in their native format with load files containing metadata that describes the history of the electronic document.” The defendants’ counsel also argued that any attorney-client communications identified by the e-mail search should be automatically excluded and be included in the in camera review.

On March 9, 2012, the plaintiff argued in a motion entitled “Request for Adjudication of Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel and Plaintiff’s Amended Motion to Compel,” that the defendants’ unwillingness to produce the requested electronic discovery, among other factors, made it necessary to create copies of the requested computer hard drives at St. Francis and CCMC by imaging them. The plaintiff referenced an affidavit attached to a letter sent to the court by the defendants’ counsel dated February 14, 2012, in which the information technology manager at CCMC testified that he had searched Sylvester’s e-mail account using agreed upon search terms and found no results; he also testified that CCMC purged its computer systems and e-mail accounts in February, 2006, and again in November, 2006.

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Related

Martowska v. White
193 A.3d 1269 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2018)
Radzick v. Connecticut Children's Medical Center
Supreme Court of Connecticut, 2015

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Bluebook (online)
77 A.3d 823, 145 Conn. App. 668, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/radzik-v-connecticut-childrens-medical-center-connappct-2013.