Confidential Communications

Those statements with regard to any transaction made by one person to another during the continuance of some relation between them which calls for or warrants such communications. At law, certain classes of such communications are held not to be proper subjects of inquiry in courts of justice, and the persons receiving them are excluded from disclosing them when called upon as witnesses, upon grounds of public policy; as communications between husband and wife, between at-

These are certain classes of communications, passing between persons who stand in a confidential or fiduciary relation to each other, (or who, on account of their relative situation, are under a special duty of secrecy and fidelity,) which the law will not permit to be divulged, or allow them to be inquired into in a court of justice, for the sake of public policy and the good order of society. Examples of such privileged relations are those of husband and wife and attorney and client. Hatton v. Robinson, 14 Pick. (Mass.) 416, 25 Am. Dec. 415; Parker v. Carter, 4 Munf. (Va.) 287, 6 Am. Dec. 513; Chirac v. Reinickee, 11 Wheat 280, 6 L. Ed. 474; Parkhurst v. Berdell, 110 N. Y. 386, 18 N. E. 123, 6 AmStRep384,

Defined under Communication in Black's Law Dictionary.