Morrison v. MalmquistMorrison v. Malmquist
The appellants were dissatisfied with the amount of the judgment entered in their favor, so they appealed.
The defendant admitted responsibility for the collision of two automobiles in one of which the plaintiff-wife was riding, but he denied that the ailments from which she suffered were traceable to his negligence. To support the рosition he introduced a physician who had examined her before the mishap and who testified that he then found the same disorders and complaints later attributed by her to the accident.
This testimony was received after the court overruled an objection to it on the ground that the information the doctor had gained was privileged; also after the doctor on his own account had sought the court‘s advice whether it would be proper for him to relate what he had learned about his patient, and had been assured by the court that there would be no breach of confidence by replying to the questions.
Thus arises the sole question for our determination, i.e., to quote from appellants’ brief, “Are Communications of a Patient to a Physician * * * Privileged * * *?”
It is cоnceded by appellants that until the passage of Chapter 26684, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1951, now Section 458.16, Florida Statutes 1951, F.S.A., such communications were not privileged. Florida Power & Light Co. v. Bridgeman, 133 Fla. 195, 182 So. 911.
At the outset we are dispоsed to express our disagreement with appellants’ argument that their position is strengthened by thе Hippocratic Oath. This oath, so-called, the creed of ethical physicians, originаted more than two thousand years ago, so the span of its existence well covers the рeriod during which the common law was developed and statutes were enacted on the subject of the confidential nature of the intelligence received by physicians from their patients. Anyway, the relevant part of the “oath,” which appellant cites, which we quote from Dоrland‘s Medical
The charge in the brief that the witness violated this “oath” when he was told to answer the questions about appellant-wife‘s physical condition prior to the collision is whоlly unfounded.
If the “oath” were to be given the construction claimed for it, it would in this very case beсome an instrument of gross fraud. The jury evidently believed that the appellant-wife was attempting tо charge to the appellee ailments from which she suffered before the incident in which appellee played a role. By silencing the doctor the appellee would be required to disgorge for conditions for which he was in no sense responsible. And, such, precisely, wоuld be the effect of our holding that the cited statute had changed the common law.
When this law, entitled “An Act Relating to Furnishing Reports of Mental and Physical Examinations of Persons by Doctors and Other Prаctitioners of the Healing Sciences“, was enacted it was not the purpose of the Legislature to modify or relax the common-law rule with reference to the character of communications between physician and patient. This would not be the conclusion from a libеral, much less strict, construction. In the act, first, is a mandate to furnish copies of all reports upon request of certain persons; then there is the admonition not to furnish “Such” reports to others except upon authorization of the patient. We take it from the context that “copies” was meant in the second instance also. There follows a proviso about “such” reports being furnished without аuthorization to persons who, with the patient‘s consent, procured the examination. The reports, or copies of reports, mentioned in the statute do not mean answers to questiоns posed in a trial and ordered answered by the presiding judge. We cannot construe testimony by а witness as a report.
As a consequence we decide that there is no clean-cut language demonstrating a purpose to amend or modify the common-law rule, so we approve the judge‘s ruling and affirm the judgment.
Affirmed.
HOBSON, C.J., and TERRELL and SEBRING, JJ., concur.