Court Opinion

ID: 9681301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:47:52.522404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:33.175459
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice. We grant a rehearing on the issue of the doctor-patient privilege; and, finding no error was committed, affirm the conviction and sentence of Theodis Baker. Theodis Baker, while in the Pulaski County jail, was treated for gonorrhea by the jail nurse. The trial court admitted into evidence the simple fact that he had been treated for gonorrhea. In our opinion in Baker v. State (May 24, 1982), we held this was error because Baker had “communicated” this information to the nurse and under Ark. Stat. Ann. § 28-1001, Rule 503 (b) (Repl. 1979), the information was privileged. Nothing Baker said to the nurse was admitted; in fact, she could recall no conversation whatsoever. Rule 503 replaced Ark. Stat. Ann. § 28-607 (1947), which was a much stricter privilege. It read: Hereafter no person authorized to practic physic or surgery and no trained nurse shall be compelled to disclose any information which he may have acquired from his patient while attending in a professional character and which information was necessary to enable him to prescribe as a physician or do any act for him as a surgeon or trained nurse. [Emphasis added.] That essentially encompasses all conceivable information a physician could have about a patient, and it was so construed. National Benevolent Society v. Barker, 155 Ark. 506, 244 S.W. 720 (1922). But Rule 503 (b) does not grant a privilege to “any information,” only “communications” between the patient and doctor, and confidential ones at that. So Rule 503 is not in essence the same as the former law as we acknowledged in our opinion. It is decidedly different; it protects only confidential communications. Rule 503 specifically includes psychotherapists and licensed psychologists in the category of “doctor.” Obviously what is told to those doctors is more sensitive than that told to average practitioners. So the real protection is aimed at preventing a doctor from repeating what a patient told him in confidence. But the privilege does not go to treatment and that is all the State offered as evidence. In Gruzen v. State, 267 Ark. 380, 591 S.W.2d 342 (1979), a psychiatrist alerted police that a crime had been committed and indirectly enabled them to discover the defendant’s identity. We found no breach of the privilege. It would be privileged information if Baker had told the nurse in confidence who he had sexual intercourse with, but that is not the question before us. The only issue is whether treatment for gonorrhea is privileged information. There is no element of self-incrimination involved because Baker voluntarily sought the treatment and thereby subjected himself to the privilege, its protection as well as its limitations. See Munn v. State, 257 Ark. 1057, 521 S.W.2d 535 (1975). In our original opinion we construed Rule 503 so that it has exactly the same practical effect as the repealed statute; that is, it protects any information the physician collects regarding a patient by incorrectly characterizing it as communication. The legislature made a significant change by adopting a more sensible rule and on rehearing we recognize that change. The rule not only applies to criminal cases but civil as well. See Ragsdale v. State, 245 Ark. 296, 432 S.W.2d 11 (1968). Actually there has long been serious opposition to the existence of any such privilege. As McCormick says: “More than a century of experience with the statutes [of the states granting the privilege] has demonstrated that the privilege in the main operates not as a shield of privacy but as the protector of fraud.” McCORMICK’S EVIDENCE § 105 (2d ed. 1972). Wigmore’s criticism is in the same vein: “From asthma to broken ribs, from influenza to tetanus, the facts of the disease are not only disclosable without shame, but are in fact often publicly known and knowable by everyone — by everyone except the appointed investigators of the truth,” which, in this case were the jurors. See VIIIWIGMORE ON EVIDENCE § 2380a (McNaughton rev. 1961). Since we find the trial court made no error in admitting the evidence, the decision on rehearing is affirmed. Adkisson, C.J., concurs. Purtle, J., dissents.