Understanding Massachusetts’ Privilege and Confidentiality Laws

When you speak to your attorney about your injury case, you probably already know that whatever you say to your attorney or whatever he or she says to you, must remain confidential and privileged. But there are more privileges in the law that go beyond you and your attorney.

What is Confidentiality?

These are privileges and confidentiality that prohibits anybody—the other side, the judge, or anybody else—from asking what was said between you and the other person.

For all of these, there are limited exceptions—for example, if you said you were going to hurt yourself or someone else—but absent that, everything you say is completely protected.

Spousal Privilege

One of the most powerful privileges is that between a married couple. Neither spouse can be forced to tell anybody what their spouse told them about virtually anything.

Note that either party can waive the privilege—that is, nothing prevents your spouse from telling anybody what you told him or her. But if your spouse refuses to say what you told him or her, nobody can get that information from your spouse or force him or her to disclose what you said.

Religious Leaders and Social Workers

Anything that you say to your religious leaders, is also privileged and confidential. Many people use religious leaders as counselors or advisors, and you can freely speak to these religious leaders in strict confidentiality.

Communications with social workers are also private and confidential, as are communications with mental health counselors, even if those counselors are not legal doctors.

Rights to Privacy and Medical Records

Massachusetts also has a general right of privacy that inures to all citizens of the state. This protects inquiry into your private matters, such as medical records, or financial matters, as well as to the privacy that we all have in our own homes.

Yes, you do have an absolute privilege in your medical information, a privilege and confidentiality that applies to all of us, regardless of whether we’re in a  lawsuit or not. But when you file an injury lawsuit, you put your medical health in issue—you are saying that you were injured. Because of that, you essentially waive your privilege in your medical records, to some extent, when you file a lawsuit for injuries.

The same applies to your private financial matters. If your lawsuit alleges lost wages, you will have to show proof of lost wages, which could entail having to disclose information that would ordinarily be privileged.

Neither of this means that every single bit of your medical and financial information can be investigated by the Defendant in your injury case. And there are times when Defendants ask for too much, or go too far, and you have a right to object. But privacy in financial and medical records often have to be waived by victims, in order to prove the things that have to be proven in an injury lawsuit.

Don’t let the Defendant get information that it isn’t allowed to have. Let us protect your rights after an accident.  Call the Boston personal injury lawyers at The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today for help with your case at 617-275-4200.

Sources:

mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-privacy

casetext.com/rule/massachusetts-court-rules/massachusetts-guide-to-evidence/article-v-privileges-and-disqualifications/section-502-attorney-client-privilege