Opinion ID: 1382761
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: implied waiver of privilege

Text: Waiver is the voluntary relinquishment of a known right and may be established by express statements or implied by conduct. [17] An implied waiver is one shown by a party's decisive, unequivocal conduct reasonably inferring the intent to waive. [18] Ordinarily, silence is insufficient to establish a waiver unless there is an obligation to speak. [19] In at least three cases, the court of appeals has considered the relationship between the statutes providing for the discovery of nonparty documents and those providing for the confidentiality of communications between psychiatrist and patient. The court first identified the issue as whether the psychiatrist-patient privilege is ever subject to waiver or is an `absolute' privilege, but declined to decide the issue. [20] Subsequently, the court held in Price v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co. [21] that a patient's failure to object within ten days under § 9-11-34(c)(2) waived the patient's right to object to a discovery request seeking documents protected by the psychiatrist-patient privilege. However, when the full court considered the issue again in this case, it overruled its prior decision in Price and held that a patient's failure to object did not constitute an affirmative waiver of privileged communications with a psychiatrist. [22] Considering the protection afforded by the mental health privilege, we conclude that a patient's failure to file an objection within ten days of the request for privileged communications from a nonparty is not the type of decisive and unequivocal conduct that justifies inferring an intent to waive the privilege. The only previous instance where we have found an implied waiver of the privilege was based on the affirmative act of a party in calling a psychiatrist as a witness. [23] In contrast, the implied waiver in this case would be based on the party's silence or failure to act. Given the importance of the privilege in encouraging and protecting confidential communications concerning the emotional and mental health of individuals, we hold that a party's silence and failure to act in response to a request for privileged matter from a nonparty health care provider or facility under OCGA § 9-11-34(c)(2) does not waive the party's privilege by implication. Because we agree with the court of appeals that Hopson did not waive her psychiatrist-patient privilege by failing to object to the request for her records from Kennestone, we affirm its decision reversing the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the hospital. Judgment affirmed.