Andrew S. Jacob of Gordon & Rees LLP writes:
The public has a right to every man’s evidence, unless that evidence is protected by a constitutional, common-law, or statutory privilege. How should this doctrine apply where a litigant seeks discovery of the identity of a nonparty patient who may have been a witness to negligence or malpractice? At what point is the right to evidence trumped by a patient’s right to privacy? When addressing such questions, courts distinguish the situation where disclosure of a nonparty patient’s identity would reveal nothing more than the fact that the person was a patient from the situation where such disclosure would reveal the nature of the person’s ailment or treatment.
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