Opinion ID: 462280
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Physician-Patient Privilege

Text: 71 Doe also asked the district court to declare that the disclosure was a violation of the physician-patient privilege as codified at in D.C. Code Sec. 14-307. Subsection (a) of that statute provides that: 72 In the Federal courts in the District of Columbia and District of Columbia courts a physician or surgeon or mental health professional as defined by the District of Columbia Mental Health Information Act of 1978 (D.C.Code, sec. 6-1611 [6-2001] et seq.) may not be permitted, without the consent of the person afflicted, or of his legal representative, to disclose any information, confidential in its nature, that he has acquired in attending a client in a professional capacity and that was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity, whether the information was obtained from the client or from his family or from the person or persons in charge of him. 73 The district court rejected Doe's claim under Sec. 14-307, stating that the privilege is an evidentiary one which does not give rise to a cause of action. J.A. at 108. In support of this conclusion the district court cited Logan v. District of Columbia, 447 F.Supp. 1328, 1335 (D.D.C.1978). In Logan, the plaintiff brought a tort action alleging that he was injured by the Administrator of the District of Columbia Narcotics Treatment Administration's disclosure to the press that the plaintiff was an illicit drug user. As part of his tort claim, he alleged violation of Sec. 14-307. The court rejected Logan's claim under the statute because the plaintiff ha[d] not cited cases from this jurisdiction that have held that the privilege or the physician-patient relationship gives rise to a cause of action. Id. at 1335. 74 The fact that Sec. 14-307 does not give rise to an action in tort 28 says nothing, however, about whether injunctive or declaratory relief is available to protect a patient against a physician's or mental health professional's avowed intention not to abide by the statute's terms. We do not hold that such relief is available, or even that the statute applies in this case. We do hold, however, that the district court clearly erred in dismissing the claim on the basis that it did. Given the fact that we are remanding the bulk of Doe's claims to the district court for determination, we remand this issue as well. Since no delay would be avoided by our determining the scope of the privilege today, we think that the interests of justice will best be served if this court avoids addressing aspects of the privilege which the district court has not yet passed upon. See supra p. 89.