Doctors in New York cannot use a section of state law to sue individuals who report them to the state for alleged misconduct, whether in bad faith or not, because that’s not what the Legislature intended when it enacted the statute, the New York Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

The state high court, in an opinion by Associate Judge Leslie Stein, ruled that a law created to shield individuals from lawsuits when they make those reports “in good faith” could not be interpreted to otherwise allow litigation.