Case Name: Robert Garner JETT, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1992-09-25
Citations: 605 So. 2d 926
Docket Number: No. 90-257
Parties: Robert Garner JETT, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: DAUKSCH, COBB, and PETERSON, J.J., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 605
Pages: 926–933

Head Matter:
Robert Garner JETT, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 90-257.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Sept. 25, 1992.
James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Larry B. Henderson, Asst. Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Belle B. Turner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
HARRIS, Judge.
We grant the State's motion for rehearing en banc, withdraw our previous opinion, and substitute the following opinion.
Robert Garner Jett was convicted on charges of sexual battery and lewd and lascivious assault on a child. The young victims, girls who were at the time nine, seven and five years of age, were the daughters of Jett's half-sister. Jett was visiting in the home of the children and was left in charge of them when the alleged offenses were committed. Although Jett's actual relationship with the children meets the definitional requirements of "child abuse or neglect," such relationship was not alleged in the information and is not an element of the charged offenses.
Jett's only point on appeal with merit involves the court's refusal to recognize the section 415.512 waiver of privilege between the professional and the client in a case involving child abuse or neglect.
We find that the law requires this conviction be reversed because Jett was not permitted to question the psychotherapist and psychologist concerning their communications with two of the three child victims; the mother waived the privilege as to one of the girls.
Judge Griffin has discerned a legislative intent behind section 415.512 that is both reasonable and practical. Even if it was not the original intent of the legislature, we commend it for their consideration. It seems to better balance the requirement for reporting and the benefit of remedial counseling than does the present language of the statute.
To construe section 415.512 in accordance with this suggested legislative intent, however, would require us to not only interpret an unambiguous statute (section 415.512) but also rewrite the reporting requirement contained in section 415.504(1):
Any person . who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is an abused or neglected child shall report such knowledge or suspicion to the department.
The reporting requirement is not limited to the first person reporting. Nor does it exempt treating professionals who are brought in to counsel the perpetrator or victim after the child abuse has been reported. The person given the obligation to report may not assume that someone else has or will report;' nor can such person rely on the statement by the perpetrator, the victim or parent that the matter has been reported. (It may well be that the perpetrator, victim or parent may not want the matter reported.)
It appears that the legislature contemplated multiple reports of the same abuse.
Section 415.504(4)(a) requires the establishment of a central abuse registry to receive all such reports for the purpose, among others, of monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the reporting requirement and to assure compliance with the requirements. It appears that the legislature, in order to assure that the abuse is reported, has determined that everyone who has knowledge of it should report it.
In Carson v. Jackson, 466 So.2d 1188 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985) the court considered in a civil context whether the privilege was waived as to a post-reporting, examining (treating) psychologist's communication with the perpetrator of child abuse. The court acknowledged that the purpose of the privilege was to encourage those needing treatment to seek it out; however, the court found the intent of the legislature was to favor discovering child abuse over the perpetrator's need for counseling and held the waiver effective. Although Carson dealt with the waiver as it applied to the perpetrator seeking treatment, we cannot read the plain language of the statute to be so patient specific. It waives the privilege both as it concerns the perpetrator and the victim.
We agree with Judge Sharp's dissent that the legislature may not have intended, by enacting section 415.512, to subject the victim's statements made to mental health providers discoverable under the criminal discovery rules. Such disclosure appears counterproductive to the legislative scheme of protecting children. However the legislature determined that such children cannot be protected or rehabilitated unless the abuse is first reported. And in order to require the reporting, the reporter had to be protected. Therefore, the privilege was waived.
The waiver statute is clear:
The privileged quality of communication . shall not apply to any situation involving known or suspected child abuse or neglect and shall not constitute grounds for failure . to give evidence in any judicial proceeding relating to child abuse or neglect.
The legislature defined "child abuse or neglect" as it relates to this statute in section 415.503(3), Florida Statutes (1991):
"Child abuse or neglect" means harm . to a child's physical or mental health or welfare by the acts . of a parent, adult household member, or other persons responsible for the child's welfare, or, for the purpose of reporting requirements, by any person.
We hold that the waiver of the privilege makes the information available to the alleged perpetrator as well as the victim (or State). We further hold that it is not essential that the defendant be charged with child abuse or neglect in order for waiver of the privilege to arise; it is sufficient that the actual charges constitute child abuse. Certainly under any interpretation of the statutory definition, sexual battery by a person responsible for the child's welfare would constitute child abuse or neglect. We further hold that the prosecutor cannot avoid the application of the waiver merely by not alleging in the information the relationship between the abuser and the child. The statutory definition makes the relationship itself (the fact not the allegation) sufficient to waive the privilege when the abuser is in fact responsible for the child's welfare.
Here the evidence, although not the allegation, indicated that the one responsible for the children's welfare committed child abuse on those children within his care. We hold the privilege was waived by the statute. We urge the legislature to reexamine section 415.512 in light of this decision, and concur with Judge Sharp that her proposed question should be certified to the supreme court.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
DAUKSCH, COBB, and PETERSON, J.J., concur.
COWART, J., concurs specially, with opinion in which DAUKSCH, J., concurs.
W. SHARP, J., concurs in part and dissents in part, with opinion.
GRIFFIN, J., dissents, with opinion in which GOSHORN, C.J., and DIAMANTIS, J., concur.
DIAMANTIS, J., dissents, with opinion in which GOSHORN, C.J., concurs.
. Courts are without power to construe unambiguous statutes in any way which would extend, modify or limit the express terms or reasonable or obvious implications. Steinbrecher v. Better Construction Co., 587 So.2d 492 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991).