As we explained in our case summary, the question in this case, certified from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, was whether New York law–specifically Public Health Law (PHL) § 230(11)(b)–allowed a private right of action against those who file a report of medical misconduct in bad faith to the State Board for Professional Medical Conduct. The Court (Stein, J.) held that state law recognized no such private cause of action.
The Court applied the test for implying a private right of action from Sheehy v. Big Flats Community Day, 73 N.Y.2d 629 (1989), and concluded that the factors from that test were not satisfied with respect to PHL § 230(11)(b). First, plaintiff was not a member of the class of people the Legislature intended to benefit by enacting PHL § 230(11)(b). That section was meant to benefit individuals reporting professional medical misconduct, not individuals who were the subject of a report of medical misconduct. Second, inferring a private right of action would not promote the legislative purpose of PHL § 230(11)(b). As the Court explained, the statute’s purpose was to increase reporting. But recognizing a private right of action could undermine that purpose by “increasing reporters’ exposure to liability” and creating a potential “chilling effect that could discourage good-faith reporting.” And third, inferring a private right of action would be inconsistent with the statutory scheme. As the Court explained, PHL § 230(11)(b) was enacted to “encourage robust reporting” but an implied right of action “would diminish the effectiveness of this statutory scheme.”
At bottom, the Court warned against attempting to infer a private right of action by negative implication–that is, through an argument that a statute creates liability by saying when a party is not liable. The Court rejected that argument here, and noted that it had rejected a similar argument in Cruz v. TD Bank, N.A., 22 N.Y.3d 61 (2013).
Return to the case page for Haar v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Ins. Co.