Lawrence Conrad Freeman appeals from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment dismissing his abusive litigation action brought pursuant to OCGA § 51-7-80 et seq. Because we find the trial court correctly concluded that the action was barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel, we affirm. Freeman brought the abusive litigation action in Cobb County State Court against the defendants he sued in a prior civil action in Fulton County Superior Court, the attorneys who represented those defendants, and the law firm which employed the attorneys. He sought to recover damages under OCGA § 51-7-80 et seq. caused by alleged abusive litigation tactics used by the defendants and their attorneys in the prior action.1 The defendants in the superior court action were Piedmont Hospital, Hulett Sumlin the hospital’s administrator, and Walter H. Butler, M.D. chairman of the hospital’s anesthesiology department and a member of the hospital’s credentials committee. The attorneys who represented those defendants were Sidney F. Wheeler and Milton B. Satcher, III, both of whom were employed by the law firm of Long, Weinberg, Ansley & Wheeler. In the prior action, Freeman, a medical doctor, sued Piedmont Hospital, Sumlin, and Butler for defamation and intentional interference with business relations claiming he was damaged by statements in a letter sent by the hospital administrator pursuant to OCGA § 31-7-8 to the Composite State Board of Medical Examiners after Freeman voluntarily resigned from the hospital’s medical staff. The letter stated that Freeman’s resignation was due in part to reports made by Butler and another physician to the credentials committee in which they reported concerns expressed by hospital nurses regarding Freeman’s performance of his medical duties.
During the course of the prior superior court litigation, a discovery dispute arose over Freeman’s efforts to compel discovery about the unspecified concerns of the unidentified nurses. The defendants, as advised by their attorneys, refused to provide the information asserting that it was protected by the privilege against discovery of peer review proceedings contained in OCGA § 31-7-133 a. The discovery dispute was addressed on interlocutory appeal in Freeman v. Piedmont Hosp. , 209 Ga. App. 845 434 SE2d 764 1993, where this Court upheld the trial court’s denial of Freeman’s motion to compel discovery, and in Freeman v. Piedmont Hosp. , 264 Ga. 343 444 SE2d 796 1994, where the Supreme Court reversed in part and remanded the case for the superior court to reconsider Freeman’s motion to compel discovery in light of its opinion. On remand, the superior court reconsidered Freeman’s motion to compel discovery and granted it to the extent required by the Supreme Court’s Freeman opinion. At that point, only Butler remained as a defendant in the superior court action, both Piedmont Hospital and Sumlin having been granted summary judgment which was affirmed in Freeman , 209 Ga. App. at 847. The superior court action was tried before a jury, which rendered a verdict in favor of Butler. After the verdict, the superior court granted Freeman’s motion for a new trial concluding based on testimony given at the trial that Freeman had been unfairly denied discovery information by the continued assertion of the peer review privilege by the defendants.
