Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege
Applied in 13 court decisions — leading case 2 Cal. 3d 415 - In Re Lifschutz (1970)
Most recently applied in 11 Cal. 5th 404 - People v. Nieves (May 2021)
Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
As used in this article, “holder of the privilege” means:
(a) The patient when he has no guardian or conservator.
(b) A guardian or conservator of the patient when the patient has a guardian or conservator.
(c) The personal representative of the patient if the patient is dead.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.