An appellate court in Washington has refused to follow several federal Circuit Courts of Appeals and refused to permit confidential ex parte communications between an attorney representing a defendant hospital and a physician employed by an outside contractor in the operation of the hospital’s emergency room when the hospital has been sued by a patient. The state Court of Appeals, by a vote of 2-1, has refused to expand the scope of the privilege. A patient was brought to the emergency room after having driven into a power pole in an accident in which his “head penetrated the windshield” of his car. He was treated at Tacoma General Hospital by Dr. David Patterson, an employee of Trauma...