Court Opinion

ID: 9727367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:32:53.372623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:36.678853
License: Public Domain

ZENOVICH, J.
I respectfully dissent based upon the fact that compelling answers to interrogatories in this case would violate the bipartite considerations set forth in Britt v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 844 [143 Cal.Rptr. 695, 574 P.2d 766] and constitute a significant invasion of petitioner’s privacy.
In Britt, the California Supreme Court struck down interrogatories which impermissibly probed into a plaintiff’s private associational activities. Britt held that a civil litigant invoking the judiciary to discover matters which are in a constitutionally protected zone of privacy must justify the discovery by a compelling state interest and tailor any inquiry so as to avoid undue infringement of protected rights. (Britt v. Superior Court, supra, 20 Cal.3d at pp. 864-865.) The court also set forth a two-prong test for allowing discovery under such circumstances in civil proceedings: “When such [constitutionally protected],. .activities are directly relevant [original italics] to the plaintiff’s claim, and disclosure of the plaintiff’s affiliations is essential to the fair resolution *293of the lawsuit, a trial court may properly compel such disclosure.” (Id., at p. 859, italics added.) Because petitioner’s right to privacy in regard to sexual relations with others is as sacrosanct as the right to associational freedom (see Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113, 152-154 [35 L.Ed.2d 147, 176-178, 93 S.Ct. 705]; Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) 405 U.S. 438, 453) [31 L.Ed.2d 349, 362, 92 S.Ct. 1029]), application of Britt is fitting under the instant factual setting. With its bipartite standard in mind, I conclude that compelling interrogatory answers would be improper for two reasons.
In my opinion, real party has not substantially demonstrated how the interrogatories are directly relevant to petitioner’s wrongful death action. It is my belief that petitioner has correctly noted that the feelings and actions of the decedent wife, rather than the sexual and dating patterns of the plaintiff husband, are the relevant concerns when gauging damages for loss of consortium. This is rather aptly expressed in the language pervading the civil jury instructions given on the issue. BAJI No. 14.40, sixth edition 1977, provides in pertinent part: “If you find that plaintiff (husband) is entitled to a verdict against the defendant and if you find that as a proximate result of the act or omission upon which you base your finding of liability that plaintiff (husband) has suffered or is reasonably certain to suffer in the future any loss of.. .(his wife’s) love, companionship, comfort, affection, society, solace or moral support; any loss of enjoyment of sexual relations or the ability to have children or any loss of. . .(her) physical assistance in the operation and maintenance of the home, you shall award. . . (him) reasonable compensation for any of such losses as may be established by the evidence.” (Italics added.) In my opinion, the instruction supports the thesis that petitioner’s wife and the services which she performed, at the time of her death and those reasonably to be expected in the future, are the proper focus of concern. From real party’s standpoint, however, it is arguable that the interrogatories are relevant either because (1) the decedent spouse was not supportive of the plaintiff, or (2) the services provided by the decedent spouse at the time of her death were necessarily diminished had the plaintiff husband obtained outside companionship. Although these are plausible considerations, I do not believe that they satisfy the direct relevance standard propounded in Britt. In its paraphrase of Britt, the court in Fults v. Superior Court (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 899, 905 [152 Cal.Rptr. 210] cogently indicated: “Simple speculation that an answer may uncover something helpful is not enough.” Applying this analysis to real party’s inquiries, relevance would be established only under the assumption that the decedent *294spouse knew of and reacted negatively to the extramarital partners of her husband or if it were proven that the husband decreased his affective ties to his former wife during the periods of outside companionship and whether those decreased ties existed at the time of her death. An approach condoning such queries would turn discovery and the subsequent trial into a wide ranging search of the husband’s activities, diverting attention from the relevant task of assessing the wife’s services. Thus, in my opinion, the interrogatories propounded to petitioner are founded upon a rather remote chance of mitigating loss of consortium damages. Sustaining these interrogatories is speculation falling short of the direct relevancy needed to avoid an invasion of plaintiff husband’s privacy.
Even if the majority opinion has correctly concluded that the interrogatories are relevant, I am not persuaded that the second prong of the Britt test has been satisfied. Before a lower court can compel disclosure in this case, it must be clear that the disclosure of the plaintiff’s extramarital sexual and dating habits would be essential to the fair resolution of the lawsuit. This closely resembles the relevancy standard used by courts when determining the admissibility of evidence—balancing probative value against the substantial danger of undue prejudice or jury confusion. (See Evid. Code, § 352.) Unlike the less stringent standard usually associated with relevancy in discovery matters (see Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 161, 172-173 [84 Cal.Rptr. 718, 465 P.2d 854]), the court in Britt suggested that the prejudicial impact of disclosures to interrogatories must be assessed. The majority opinion employs the broad test of relevancy for discovery matters—whether the inquiries would lead to information helpful at trial. This reasoning ignores the stronger standard of direct relevancy articulated in Britt when dealing with discovery which might infringe on an individual’s privacy. In my opinion, Britt indicates that interrogatories like those in the present case should be subjected to a balancing test which weights probative value against prejudicial influence.
Furthermore, the children of the decedent as well as petitioner are parties to the lawsuit. It is my conviction that unfairness would result to the children if petitioner were forced to answer real party’s queries about extramarital relationships. Besides the risk that the jury will shift its attention from determining the defendant’s negligence to adjudging the morality of the husband’s indiscretions, there is a high probability of prejudice to the three minor children who are also plaintiffs in the underlying lawsuit. As the majority opinion recognizes in its first foot*295note, a jury returns one verdict, in a single monetary figure, representing the judgment of aggregate loss which it feels was suffered by all the plaintiffs in the wrongful death action. Although the interrogatories should only theoretically garner evidence relevant to the husband’s damages, it is pragmatic to fear that jurors will not confine their consideration of such information to this narrow issue. The possibility that this might prejudice the recoveries of the other plaintiffs prompts me to find that disclosure by petitioner would be unfair under the circumstances of this case. As petitioner contends, “it is clear that a violation of the plaintiff’s rights of sexual privacy and to associational privacy could lead to the revelation of information which would lead to the destruction of the minor children’s image of their father, and the disruption of the present family unit.” In my opinion, a compelling state interest exists to prevent this from happening.
Since these interrogatories appear to merely have indirect relevance and contain an undue risk of prejudice to other parties once disclosures are made, I do not think petitioner should be compelled to answer. Any attempt to compel disclosures is, in my opinion, a violation of his right to privacy.
I would grant the petition for a writ of mandate in this case.
Petitioners’ application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 7, 1980. Bird, C. J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the application should be granted.