Opinion ID: 1198869
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Legal Framework of the District Court's Ruling

Text: In reaching its conclusion that Sims's mental health records should be disclosed because Sims may not unring the bell, 2002 Disclosure Order at 1, the court quoted United States ex rel. Carthan v. Sheriff ( Carthan ) for the proposition that  [o]nce he waives his privilege. .., a witness may not withdraw his waiver to prevent matters which he has already gone into from being explored in greater detail, 330 F.2d at 102 (emphasis ours). The context in which the Carthan statement was made, however, was materially different from the circumstances here. To begin with, Carthan was not a plaintiff in a civil case in which he could withdraw a claim; he was a witness in a grand jury investigation over which he had no control. Further, he was a New York City employee who was required, by the City Charter, to waive his privilege against self-incrimination with respect to city affairs if he wished to retain his position and his eligibility for any other city employment; and he in fact executed a Limited Waiver of Immunity. 330 F.2d at 101. In addition, Carthan had proceeded to disclose financial information for certain years by answering grand jury questionnaires. When he thereafter, invoking the privilege against self-incrimination, resisted compliance with a grand jury subpoena for his income tax returns for those years and was held in contempt, we refused to disturb the contempt ruling because he had knowingly waived his privilege. This was the context of the statement that Carthan could not withdraw his waiver, id. at 102. The circumstances of the present case are far different. For example, nothing in the record here suggests that Sims made a knowing election to waive his psychotherapist-patient privilege. Sims requested and was denied assignment of counsel, and nothing has been called to our attention to indicate that he was even aware that he had such a privilege and was entitled to maintain the confidentiality of his psychiatric communications. Further, unlike a grand jury witness who has no say over the issues in the proceeding, Sims, as a plaintiff in a civil case, was entitled not to pursue a claim he had asserted. Indeed, Sims's attorneys stated that Sims never intended to place his mental or emotional state `at issue', and that condition is not an element of his Section 1983 claim. (Korn Letter at 1.) And as discussed above, there is in fact no mention in either Sims's original complaint or his Amended Complaint of emotional distress. But in any event, especially given that Sims commenced the action pro se, his subsequent counseled express disavowal of any claim for unusual emotional distresswhether such a claim was actually asserted or was merely imputed to him by respondentsshould have been given effect. Finally as to Carthan, as discussed in Part II.B.2.c. below, a disclosure made to the grand jury is materially different in impact from a disclosure made to a party opponent in a deposition. A grand jury uses the information it receives in order to decide whether or not a criminal proceeding will be commenced. Deposition testimony in a civil action, on the other hand, might never come to the attention of any decisionmaker. For all of these reasons, Carthan 's ruling that the grand jury witness could not withdraw his waiver of the privilege against self-incrimination bears little relationship to this civil-action plaintiff's withdrawal of a claim. In addition, the district court in the present case cited Chnapkova v. Koh, 985 F.2d 79, 82 (2d Cir.1993), in support of its view that Sims's psychiatric records should be disclosed in order to avoid respondents' being disadvantaged ... specifically in their inability to, for example, prove the reason for Sims's return to the PSU, and disadvantaged ... generally if they are unable to use those records to test [his] credibility, 2002 Disclosure Order at 2. Chnapkova, however, which concerned admissibility of a plaintiff's psychiatric records at trial, did not analyzeor even mentionprivilege and did not involve an issue of privilege waiver or forfeiture. Rather, its focus was solely on the probative value of the records. The trial in Chnapkova took place prior to this Court's first recognition of the psychotherapist-patient privilege, see In re Doe (Diamond), 964 F.2d 1325, 1328 (2d Cir.1992), and the Chnapkova trial judge excluded the plaintiff's psychiatric records from evidence pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 403 on the ground that any probative value they might have was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. This Court reversed, holding that the records could be used because they would be sufficiently probative of ... credibility, 985 F.2d at 81, and certainly probative of one of the facts in issue, see id. at 82. Our conclusion in Chnapkova, which was decided in 1993, that the prejudice resulting from disclosure of psychiatric records could be outweighed by the probative value of those records, was overtaken by the Supreme Court's 1996 decision in Jaffee that the psychotherapist-patient privilege is not subject to such a balancing test. As discussed above, Jaffee held that the psychotherapist-patient privilege promotes sufficiently important interests to outweigh the need for probative evidence, 518 U.S. at 9-10, 116 S.Ct. 1923 (internal quotation marks omitted), and transcend[s] the normally predominant principle of utilizing all rational means for ascertaining truth, id. at 15, 116 S.Ct. 1923 (internal quotation marks omitted). In sum, the district court's reliance on Chnapkova in the 2002 Disclosure Order for the proposition that Sims's psychiatric records should be disclosed in order to allow respondents to prove certain facts and to test Sims's credibility was misplaced, as that case did not involve a claimed privilege forfeiture or entail the type of fairness analysis that a determination as to forfeiture requires, and instead utilized a balancing analysis that is now foreclosed by Jaffee. Nor does the district court's decision comport with Jaffee based on the rationale stated in October 2005 that Sims's psychiatric records should be disclosed, on account of his assertion that the assault on him was unprovoked, because those records might undermine that assertion by showing that he had masochistic or suicidal tendencies. The possibility that a patient has such tendencies is a far better reason to deny disclosure than to grant it. If the privilege were rejected, confidential conversations between psychotherapists and their patients would surely be chilled, Jaffee, 518 U.S. at 11-12, 116 S.Ct. 1923, and the public interest in securing psychiatric help for a patient who has suicidal tendencies surely transcends the interest of an accused assailant who wishes to suggest that the existence of such tendencies indicates that the patient started the fight. The suicidal tendencies rationale exceeded appropriate bounds of discretion. Finally, while the district court recognized the importance of fairness to the other side in considering whether there should be a forfeiture of the privilege, we do not see that the court gave consideration to several components of fairness in this context, which are discussed in Part II.B.1. Sims, who had expressly withdrawn any claim of emotional distress injury (beyond garden variety pain and suffering from physical injury) had not attempted to use the privilege both as `a shield and a sword.' In re Grand Jury, 219 F.3d at 182. This case had nothing in common with that of a defendant who asserts an advice-of-counsel defense but then invokes the privilege in an effort to prevent the adversary from discovering his communications with his counsel. Id. at 182-83 (internal quotation marks omitted). Nor was Sims assert[ing] a claim that in fairness requires examination of protected communications. Bilzerian, 926 F.2d at 1292. Sims was not partially disclos[ing] privileged communications or affirmatively rely[ing] on privileged communications to support [his] claim ... and then shield[ing] the underlying communications from scrutiny by the opposing party. In re Grand Jury, 219 F.3d at 182. He did not take affirmative steps to inject privileged materials into the litigation while simultaneously trying to shield the privileged communications from scrutiny by the adversary. Id. at 187. The unfairness courts have found which justified imposing involuntary forfeiture [of a privilege] generally resulted from a party's advancing a claim to a court or jury (or perhaps another type of decision maker) while relying on its privilege to withhold from a litigation adversary materials that the adversary might need to effectively contest or impeach the claim. Doe Co., 350 F.3d at 303. This case exhibited none of these characteristics. Further, in basing its waiver finding on the proposition that at his deposition Sims testified freely, 2002 Disclosure Order at 2, about his communications with Del Santo, the district court apparently gave no consideration to the fact that at that deposition Sims was not represented by counsel, the court having denied his request either for permission to provide discovery in some other manner or for the appointment of counsel to represent him. While a party to a civil action of course has no constitutional right to the assignment of counsel, see, e.g., United States v. Coven, 662 F.2d 162, 176 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 916, 102 S.Ct. 1771, 72 L.Ed.2d 176 (1982), and we intend no criticism of the district court for not having appointed counsel for Sims sooner, it is nonetheless relevant to the fairness analysis that the record does not indicate that Sims was learned in the law and does indicate that when Sims represented himself at his deposition it was not by his choice.