Rush, C.J.
The Medical Malpractice Act was enacted in 1975, making Indiana one of the first states to legislatively respond to severe spikes in malpractice insurance premiums for healthcare professionals that risked a reduction of services available to the public. Nearly fifty years later, the act remains in force. It grants authority over medical malpractice actions first to a medical review panel, which must render an opinion on a proposed complaint before a claimant can sue a healthcare provider in court. During this review-panel process, trial courts have limited authority to intervene and grant relief. Today, we determine whether that authority includes redacting or otherwise excluding evidence a party submits to a medical review panel as well as what constitutes such evidence.
Here, six patients of a deceased physician filed medical malpractice actions against his estate and his practice alleging the physician breached the standard of care. In support of those allegations, the patients submitted materials to medical review panels, including medical records, narrative statements, testimony from other doctors, and a wrongful death complaint the physician’s wife had filed in a separate malpractice action. The respondents then filed a petition with the trial court, seeking redaction of the wife’s complaint, as well as any mention of its contents in the patients’ submissions. The trial court granted that petition.
We reverse. In examining the relevant statutes, we conclude that trial courts have no authority to act as gatekeeper of the evidence a party submits to a medical review panel. And because we conclude that the third-party complaint here is evidence, we hold that the court lacked the authority to order the patients to redact their submissions.
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The questions here are whether, under Section 34-18-10-14, a trial court has the authority to redact or otherwise exclude evidence a party submits to a medical review panel, and whether the third-party complaint is evidence the panels can consider. By law, parties are required to “promptly” submit “evidence in written form” for the panel to consider in reaching its opinion. I.C. § 34-18-10-17(a). And that “evidence may consist of medical charts, x-rays, lab tests, excerpts of treatises, depositions of witnesses including parties, and any other form of evidence allowable by the medical review panel.” Id. § -17(b). Though we have previously held that trial courts cannot dictate what evidence a panel “may consider in reaching its opinion” under Section 34-18-11-1, Griffith, 602 N.E.2d at 111, we have yet to determine whether courts also lack that authority under Section 34-18-10-14.
Physicians contend that Section 34-18-10-14 allows a trial court to order a party to redact “non-evidence” from submissions to the medical review panel and that Anonymous Physician’s wife’s wrongful death complaint is not “evidence” under Section 34-18-10-17. Patients disagree, asserting that Section 34-18-10-14 “does not permit a trial court to serve as a gatekeeper for materials submitted to a medical review panel.” And they contend that the third-party complaint falls within “any other form of evidence allowable by the medical review panel.” I.C. § 34-18-10-17(b).
We agree with Patients. In reaching that conclusion, we outline the scope of a trial court’s authority under Section 34-18-10-14 and conclude that it does not give trial courts the authority to redact or otherwise exclude evidence submitted to a medical review panel. We then hold that the third-party complaint could be considered evidence subject to the panels’ discretion. As a result, the trial court had no authority to order the redaction of Patients’ submissions. We therefore reverse.
I. Trial courts have authority to grant relief under Section 34-18-10-14 only if there is a failure to act as required by statute.
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The above statutes and case law interpreting them dictate the scope of a trial court’s authority under Section 34-18-10-14 as limited to an alleged failure to act as required by a statute within that chapter. With this framework in hand, we now determine whether trial courts have the authority under Section 34-18-10-14 to mandate a party redact evidence submitted to a medical review panel and whether the third-party complaint here is evidence under Section 34-18-10-17.
II. The trial court exceeded its statutory authority by ordering Patients to redact their evidentiary submissions.
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The plain, unambiguous language of Section 34-18-10-17 does not provide trial courts with the authority to redact or otherwise exclude evidence a party submits to the medical review panel. The statute requires parties to “promptly” submit “evidence in written form to be considered by the medical review panel.” I.C. § 34-18-10-17(a). And that “evidence may consist of medical charts, x-rays, lab tests, excerpts of treatises, depositions of witnesses including parties, and any other form of evidence allowable by the medical review panel.” Id. § -17(b). But before considering any evidence, each member must “take an oath in writing” stating in relevant part that they will “truly consider the evidence submitted by the parties” and render their “opinion without bias, based upon the evidence submitted by the parties.” Id. § -17(e). And the chair “shall ensure” each member “has the opportunity to review every item of evidence submitted by the parties.” Id. § -17(d).
So although parties must “promptly” submit evidence, the statute does not restrict the type of evidence that may be submitted other than it be “allowable” by the panel. And the chairperson, who is an attorney, provides guidance to the other panel members on any questions related to the evidentiary submission. See I.C. §§ 34-18-10-3(b), -19. In these ways, the MMA gives the panel alone the role of reviewing submitted evidence and determining how it affects their opinion. Thus, a trial court cannot act as gatekeeper of this evidence…As a result, trial courts have no authority under Section 34-18-10-14 to redact or otherwise exclude a party’s evidentiary submission to a medical review panel.
This conclusion brings us to Physicians’ contention that the court nevertheless had the authority to redact Patients’ submissions because the third-party complaint is not evidence under Section 34-18-10-17. We disagree.
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Applying that definition here, we hold that Anonymous Physician’s wife’s complaint is evidence allowable by the panels. Patients alleged in part that the doctor breached his standard of care “by failing to recuse himself from treating” each patient if his “bizarre treatment and behavior was due” to either substance abuse or mental health issues. And because Patients submitted the wife’s complaint to establish the existence of these alleged facts, it is evidence the panels can consider. But this conclusion does not necessarily mean the complaint is reliable or relevant—it is each medical review panel’s role to make those determinations in forming its opinion. Unlike a trial court judge, whose discretion is constrained by the Rules of Evidence, the MMA gives the medical review panel independent discretion in deciding what evidence it deems “allowable.” I.C. § 34-18-10- 17(b).
Thus, the definition and application of what qualifies as “evidence” under Section 34-18-10-17 are broad—a result that promotes the MMA’s goals of efficient litigation and an informal review-panel process…..
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In summary, trial courts have no authority under Section 34-18-10-14 to act as gatekeeper of the evidence a party submits to the medical review panel. And that evidence includes any material submitted by a party that tends to produce conviction in the mind as to the existence of an alleged fact. Because the challenged third-party complaint here falls within this definition as evidence allowable by the panel, the trial court lacked the authority to order Patients to redact their submissions.
Conclusion
For the reasons articulated above, we reverse the trial court’s order granting Physicians’ petition and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion. [Footnote omitted.]
Massa, Slaughter, Goff, and Molter, JJ., concur.