In a very recent case, brought to my attention by colleague Bruce Borosky, (See: Garcia v. Guiles, No. 1D17-5125 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Sept. 5, 2018)) the court held that in time sharing (referred to by the court as “child custody”) matters a GAL can authorize waiver of the psychotherapist-patient privilege.
This is an extension of the prior case law, which had held that the parents might not have standing to assert or waiver privilege, of which, from the court’s opinion:
Although "neither parent could have waived the psychotherapist privilege, because the subject matter of the litigation was the child's welfare," Brown v. Brown, 180 So. 3d 1070, 1072 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015), the court appointed a guardian ad litem to protect the interests of the child, and the guardian determined that it was in the child's best interest to waive the privilege, see Phillips v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 347 So. 2d 465, 466 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977) ("The next friend of a minor has power to act on that minor's behalf."). Accordingly, we conclude that the court—having considered the opinion of the child's guardian ad litem that waiving the privilege was in the child's best interest—did not err in allowing the psychotherapist to testify.
This appears to be the first case that specifically provides for a GAL to have standing to waive privilege.
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