Court Opinion

ID: 9742937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:22:56.775863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:20:42.277071
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
Under the present law the strict confidentiality of information acquired by a physician while treating or attending a patient is preserved in effect after the patient’s death. The Masonic Mutual Benefit Association v. Beck, (1881) 77 Ind. 203. After the death of the patient the restriction prevents the physician from testifying as to the patient’s testamentary capacity so long as anyone who may be said to stand in the place of the testator desires that it be maintained. Towles v. McCurdy, (1904) 163 Ind. 12, 71 N.E. 129. It is proper and right to repose this authority in such persons because they have the same interest in nondisclosure after his death that decedent had prior to his death. I would maintain the present law which provides that so long as a *359person who may reasonably be said to stand in the place of decedent after his death stands up and asks the court to maintain the cloak of privacy, that request should be honored and no other.
There are in addition, I perceive, additional ancillary benefits which flow from maintaining the present law. The present law, by restricting the right to waive the privilege, maximizes and preserves to a high degree the benefits which the General Assembly sought to afford society by enacting the doctor-patient privilege statute, and giving that privilege effect after death of the patient. The present law also acts as a deterrent to those who would procure medical attention for the decedent during his last illness for the purpose of gaining medical information about his condition with the intent of later using that information to either attack or defend the written will. The loss of that deterrent effect is likely to result in intolerable invasions of the decedent’s privacy during his last illness.
Note. — Reported at 370 N.E.2d 341.