Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1Witthaus, R. A. (Rudolph August)
Science
Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1
Witthaus, R. A. (Rudolph August)
Medical jurisprudence; Poisons; Toxicology
_What Constitutes a Waiver of the Privilege._—The statutory provisions
as to what constitutes a waiver have been set forth above.[312] In
California it has been held that cross-examination of the physician
by the patient, calling for privileged matter, is a waiver of
privilege.[313] In Indiana it has been held that consent to disclosure
cannot be inferred from the patient’s simply giving the name of his
family physician in applying for a policy of insurance on his life,
and that a waiver in such an application should be evidenced by a
stipulation too plain to be misunderstood.[314] And a physician’s
statements of the cause of his patient’s death, furnished to an
insurance company, in pursuance of a stipulation of a policy that
satisfactory proof of death shall be submitted to the company, are not
rendered admissible by that stipulation.[315]
It has also been held that consent to the evidence of one physician
is no consent that another physician may divulge confidential
communications;[316] and that the physician cannot testify that he
found no evidence of injury on the examination of his patient, in
order to contradict her;[317] the patient had already testified as
to her condition and what the physician had done, but not as to
anything said to her by her physician; she had expressly declined
to testify concerning communications except as to his prescription
for her injury, and without asking him to disprove her assertions
the trial Court permitted him to say that he had found no evidence
of injury; this was held to be error. It has also been held that the
taking of a physician’s deposition and filing it, for the purpose
of breaking the force of his testimony in a deposition taken by the
opposite party, is no consent in itself to the reading of the other
party’s deposition.[318] But when, in an action against a physician for
malpractice, the patient testifies as to the manner of treatment, the
physician is then at liberty to introduce the testimony of himself or
another physician as to the facts thus put in issue by the patient.[319]
In Iowa it has been held that the testimony of a patient regarding the
condition of his health is not a waiver of privilege, so as to allow
his opponent to introduce the testimony of his physician to contradict
him.[320]
In Michigan a physician has been allowed to contradict his patient as
to the time when her trouble commenced, but on the ground that it had
not been shown that the information was necessary to enable him to
prescribe.[321] But it has been held that waiver as to one physician is
not waiver as to another regarding a different time.[322]
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