Opinion ID: 1708811
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Waiver of Privilege

Text: The client is the holder of the privilege; therefore, the power to waive it is his alone, or his attorney or agent acting with his authority, or his representative may exercise this power. McCormick, supra, § 93, at 223. Waiver includes, as Wigmore points out, not merely words or conduct expressing an intention to relinquish a known right, but conduct which would make it unfair for the client to insist on the privilege thereafter. Id.; 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2327, at 636. See also United States v. Woodall, 438 F.2d 1317, 1324 (5th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 933, 91 S.Ct. 2262, 29 L.Ed.2d 712 (1971); State v. Aucoin, 362 So.2d 503, 505-6 (La.1978) (quoting 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2388 (3), at 855). The unfairness justifying a waiver of the privilege, however, must flow from the act on which the waiver is premised, not from a vague sense that the existence of the privilege itself is inequitable. Wigmore, who supports the privilege, acknowledges, that, Its benefits are all indirect and speculative; its obstruction is plain and concrete. 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2291, at 554. Nevertheless, the legislature in recognizing the privilege has decided that the detriment to justice from a power to shut off inquiry into pertinent facts in court will be outweighed by the benefits to the system of justice (not to the client) from a franker disclosure in the lawyer's office. McCormick, supra, § 87, at 205. See Upjohn Co., 449 U.S. at 389, 101 S.Ct. at 682, 66 L.Ed.2d at 591 (1981). Consequently, a waiver must be founded on an affirmative act by the privilege-holder that creates some further detriment to the truth-seeking process in addition to that already taken into account in the creation of the privilege itself. Marcus, The Perils of Privilege: Waiver and the Litigator, 84 Mich.L.Rev. 1605, 1607 (1986). [2] The kind of unfairness justifying waiver most commonly results from a privilege-holder's abuse of his privilege in three types of situations: (1) partial disclosurea strategic introduction into evidence of only part of a larger class of privileged material; [3] (2) pretrial partial disclosurea pretrial disclosure of privileged communication indicating a decision to rely on privileged evidence at trial; [4] and (3) placing privileged communications at issuean affirmative pleading of a claim or defense that inevitably requires the introduction of privileged communications. [5] See Developments, supra, at 1629 (1985); Marcus, supra, at 1628; Davidson & Voth, supra, at 639-40. Disclosure at trial of only part of a larger body of privileged communications is deemed to be a waiver of privilege with respect to any withheld information about communications on the same subject matter. 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2327, at 636-38. Accordingly, a privilege-holder who testifies or permits his confidant to testify at trial about his privileged communications with his attorney or physician, waives his right to invoke the privilege as to cross-examination or testimony of others with regard to communications on the same subject. Hunt v. Blackburn, 128 U.S. 464, 470-71, 9 S.Ct. 125, 127, 32 L.Ed. 488, 491 (1888); Jackson v. Swift & Co., 151 So. 816, 818 (La.App. 2d Cir.1934); State v. Sullivan, 230 Or. 136, 141-42, 368 P.2d 81, 83-84 (1962), cert denied, 370 U.S. 957, 82 S.Ct. 1610, 8 L.Ed. 823 (1962); Mauro v. Tracy, 152 Colo. 106, 108, 380 P.2d 570, 571 (1963); 8 Wigmore, supra, § 2327 (4) & (5), at 638; McCormick, supra, § 93, at 224-25. The introduction into evidence of documents disclosing privileged communications also waives the privilege against testimony or production of further documents disclosing communications on the same subject. Edmund J. Flynn Co. v. La Vay, 431 A.2d 543, 551 (D.C.1981); Hill v. Hill, 106 Colo. 492, 107 P.2d 597, 598-99 (1940); McCormick, supra, § 93, at 226. The rationale of a waiver based on partial disclosure is that permitting a party to make such an incomplete disclosure, without losing his privilege with respect to the remainder of the communication or communications on that subject, would be unfair to the adversary because it would give the privilege-holder unchecked editorial control over the available evidence to a degree that would practically ensure a distorted presentation of the communication or communications. See Woodall, 438 F.2d at 1324-26; In re Penn Cent. Commercial Paper Litig., 61 F.R.D. 453, 464 (S.D.N.Y.1973); Developments, supra, at 1632 n. 17. Privileges generally deprive litigants and the judicial system of probative evidence, and the suppression of such evidence disadvantages the opposing litigant. The disadvantage arising from the general recognition of a privilege is, however, qualitatively distinct from the unfairness created by a partial disclosure. A partial disclosure creates the additional risk of distorting or garbling the communication by allowing partial introduction without providing the opponent an opportunity to establish its true content and context. A partial disclosure without a waiver of the privilege as to the remainder of the privileged communications on the same subject would conflict with the fundamental precept of our adversarial system of justice that litigants should have a fair opportunity to test each other's evidence through cross-examination and rebuttal. Developments, supra, at 1634. This right is an example of the traditional principle of completeness, which will often make admissible testimony as to the remainder of a conversation, statement, confession, act or occurrence. See State v. Green, 443 So.2d 531, 537 (La.1983); Broussard v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 188 So.2d 111, 120 (La.App. 3d Cir.), writ denied, 249 La. 713, 190 So.2d 233 (1966), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 909, 87 S.Ct. 855, 17 L.Ed.2d 783 (1967); La.R.S. 15:450 (West 1981); La.C.Civ.P. art. 1450. See also Proposed Louisiana Code of Evidence, arts. 106, 401-403 and 611 (A) and the comments thereto; 7 J. Wigmore, Evidence In Trials at Common Law, § 2113 (J. Chadbourn rev. ed. 1978); Developments, supra, at 1634 n. 24. Also, as Learned Hand put it with regard to the fifth amendment, the privilege is to suppress the truth, but that does not mean that it is a privilege to garble it; ... it should not furnish one side with what may be false evidence and deprive the other of the means of detecting the imposition. United States v. St. Pierre, 132 F.2d 837, 840 (2d Cir.1942), cert. dismissed as moot, 319 U.S. 41, 63 S.Ct. 910, 87 L.Ed. 1199 (1943). See Marcus, supra, at 1607. A pretrial partial disclosure does not cause the same kind of immediate unfairness as a partial disclosure at trial, because the communication fragment has not yet been introduced into evidence against an opponent. Nevertheless, it may cause comparable unfairness by distorting an opponent's settlement evaluations and obstructing his ability to prepare effectively for trial. Developments, supra, at 1635. These considerations have led courts to invoke the principle of anticipatory waiver in ordering the discovery of otherwise privileged communications when such discovery merely anticipates a waiver by disclosure at trial. See Leucadia, Inc., 101, F.R.D. 679-80; International Tel. & Tel., 60 F.R.D. at 186. Because the unfairness of pretrial partial disclosure is merely an outgrowth of anticipated use of the disclosed communication fragment at trial, the disclosing party always has the option of avoiding compelled discovery by stipulating that he will not introduce that or any privileged communications upon the same subject into evidence at trial. Cf. International Tel. & Tel., 60 F.R.D. at 186. Placing-at-issue waiver occurs when a privilege-holder pleads a claim or a defense in such a way that he will be forced inevitably to draw upon a privileged communication at trial in order to prevail. Consequently, he places at issue and waives his privilege as to communications on the same subject under his control. Developments, supra, at 1637; Marcus, supra, at 1630-31 and 1655. See Leucadia, Inc., 101 F.R.D. at 679-80. Placing-at-issue waiver is an application of the anticipatory waiver principle. An allegation, which anticipates a disclosure that will inevitably occur at trial creates the same type of unfairness as a pre-trial partial disclosure: delaying waiver until trial could hamper settlement evaluation and effective trial preparation. Developments, supra, at 1639; Marcus, supra, at 1630. Some courts have adopted a more liberal view of placing-at-issue waiver by applying the three-part test set forth in Hearn v. Rhay, 68 F.R.D. 574, 581 (E.D.Wash.1975): the attorney-client privilege is waived when the privilege-holder (1) through some affirmative act, makes an assertion that (2) renders relevant to the action (3) privileged matter that is vital to the opposing party's defense. See Connell v. Bernstein-Macaulay, Inc., 407 F.Supp. 420, 422-23 (S.D.N.Y.1976); and League v. Vance, 221 Neb. 34, 374 N.W.2d 849, 856 (1985). The rationale for finding that the attorney-client privilege causes unfairness in these cases is, however, unclear and has been the subject of well taken scholarly criticism. Developments, supra, at 1639-43; Marcus, supra, at 1628-32; Davidson & Voth, supra, at 649. We have not followed the Hearn v. Rhay test because it improperly undermines the legislatively established attorney-client privilege by causing courts to reassess the privilege by weighing the individual privilege-holder's interests against his opponent's need for evidence whenever the privilege is attacked. Developments, supra, at 1641-43. This ignores the general interest of the system of justice in maintaining the privilege and leads to automatic waiver even when there has been no misuse by the privilege-holder or unfairness to his opponent. Developments, supra, at 1642-43 n. 66. In reality the Hearn test is no test at all because the assertion of almost any claim or defense can be called an affirmative act, and privileged material will usually be relevant and vital to the opposing party, or else he would not make the effort to obtain it. Developments, supra, at 1642-43. The aggregate effect of the application of this and other liberal waiver rules is a severe weakening of the privilege that results in increased litigation costs, more judicial time spent on discovery disputes, and a loss of confidence in the privilege. Marcus, supra, at 1608, 1609-13, and 1614-16; Developments, supra, at 1643; Davidson & Voth, supra, at 653-57. Unfortunately it also appears that the deleterious consequences of the broad waiver rules fall more heavily upon the poorer litigants. Marcus, supra, at 1613-14. Legislatively-established privileges that can be nullified only by the privilege-holder's waiver, such as the attorney-client privilege, should not depend on case-by-case balancing of harm to the relationship against an opposing litigant's need for information. The privilege has been instituted by the legislature on the basis of a system-wide balancing of costs and benefits. Once all the technical requirements of a privilege have been met, courts should not impose their own sense of the equities, because trial judges may tend to give decisive weight to the needs of the parties before them, without adequately considering the full, system-wide benefits of a privilege. A rule of waiver that turns on the opponent's need for information would subject the privilege to the hazards of fortune: the continued existence of one's privilege would depend not on how one has used or abused the privilege, but rather on who one's adversary happens to be. Developments, supra, at 1641-43; Marcus, supra, at 1629; Davidson & Voth, supra, at 649. Under the anticipatory waiver theory, which we adopt herein, the court is not invited to readjust the cost-benefit balance struck by the legislature in establishing the attorney-client privilege. Waiver does not depend merely upon the relevance of privileged communications or upon the court's impression as to how badly the opposing party needs the evidence. Under the anticipatory waiver theory the court must concern itself solely with whether the privilege holder has committed himself to a course of action that will require the disclosure of a privileged communication.