BERNARD COHEN, IRWIN COHEN, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS GENERAL PARTNERS OF COBIS, A FLORIDA GENERAL PARTNERSHIP, COBIS, AND COHEN & COHEN, P.A., PETITIONERS,
v.
STANFORD COHEN, RESPONDENT
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Florida appellate court quashed trial court order compelling production of psychiatric records where defendant asserted psychotherapist-patient privilege, holding the privilege was not waived and the mental condition exception did not apply because defendant did not rely on his psychiatric condition as an element of his claim or defense.
The psychotherapist-patient privilege protects psychiatric records from discovery when the patient has not relied on his mental condition as an element of his claim or defense and has not waived the privilege by disclosing the condition to obtain disability benefits.
[1] The psychotherapist-patient privilege is not waived when a patient discloses his psychiatric condition to an insurance carrier solely in connection with a disability clai…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceDefendants sought to prevent production of one defendant's psychiatric records in response to plaintiff's notice of production from a non-party. The d…
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PER CURIAM.
Petitioners, defendants below, seek certiorari relief from an order of the trial court which denied their objections to the plaintiffs notice of production from a non-party, thereby compelling the production of the psychiatric records of one of the defendants over his assertion of the psychotherapist-patient privilege. We grant the petition.
The psychiatric disability of this particular individual defendant several years earlier clearly was not related to the defendants’ counterclaim of mental anguish due to allegations that the plaintiff recently took personal property from the defendants’ safe deposit box. The fact that the defendant’s psychiatric disability relates to two of the plaintiffs claims does not bring it within the section 90.50S(4)(c), Florida Statutes (2000), exception to the privilege, as the patient did not rely on his mental or emotional condition as an element of his claim or defense. See Boyle v. Thebaut, 645 So. 2d 64, 66 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994). Nor did the plaintiff demonstrate the patient waived the privilege merely by informing the plaintiff (who at that time managed the defendants’ law firm) that he was filing a disability claim based on his condition, or by his releasing medical records to the disability insurance carrier in connection with that claim. See § 90.507, Fla. Stat. (2000).
Accordingly, the order in question is hereby quashed.
FARMER, GROSS and TAYLOR, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Cruz-Govin v. Torres, 29 So. 3d 393 (Fla. 3d DCA 2010)…lth at issue. Torres “cannot pierce the privilege by filing a claim that makes an issue of [Cruz-Go-vin’s] mental health.” Viveiros, 832 So. 2d at 869; Bandorf v. Volusia County Dep’t of Com., 939 So. 2d 249, 251 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006); Cohen v. Cohen, 813 So. 2d 1060, 1061 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002); Morrison, 621 So. 2d at 469; Hall v. Spencer, 472 So. 2d 1205, 1206 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985). Second, Cruz-Govin did not place his mental or emotional condition at issue by merely denying the opposing party’s allegations or su…
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Viveiros v. Cooper, 832 So. 2d 868 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002)…466 So. 2d 1188, 1190 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985). Further, the Respondent cannot pierce the privilege by filing a claim that makes an issue of the Petitioner’s mental health. See Morrison, 621 So. 2d at 468, (citing Hall, 472 So. 2d 1205); Cohen v. Cohen, 813 So. 2d 1060 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002). Thus, the Respondent’s argument that the privilege does not apply because Respondent made a claim for punitive damages lacks merit. The Respondent also argued that she made a showing of good cause.1 We [*870] decline to address…
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August Urbanek v. Urbanek, 46 So. 3d 1235 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010)…itial waiver of the privilege was revoked when petitioner withdrew the affidavit. See Garbacik v. Wal-Mart Transp. LLC., 932 So. 2d 500, 503 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006); Commercial Carrier Corp. v. Kelley, 903 So. 2d 240 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005); Cohen v. Cohen, 813 So. 2d 1060 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002); Sykes By & [*1237] Through Sykes v. St. Andrews Sch., 619 So. 2d 467 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993). Petitioner submitted the affidavit in response to an affidavit submitted by Gerald Urbanek in connection with issues which were, and remai…
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- Boyle v. Thebaut, 645 So. 2d 64 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994)