Also known as: privilege · privileges · privileged · general privilege
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A legal protection that exempts specified conduct or information from the ordinary consequences of liability or compelled disclosure.
Paula Pierce moves from State A to State B and applies for welfare benefits. State B limits her payments to the amount she would have received in State A for her first year of residence. The court invalidates the limit because it abridges privileges of national citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Piper Patel sues Prime Logistics for personal injury and calculates lost wages. She withholds the underlying medical records from initial disclosure, claiming they are privileged. The court orders production after finding the privilege claim unfounded under the discovery rules.
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Priya Prasad is subpoenaed to testify about statements her husband made during their marriage. The court rules that a marital communications privilege applies and excuses her from testifying about those statements.
Portia Price retains a key after her contract ends and enters a monitoring station at night to change sensor data. Because she lacks any license or privilege to enter, the entry supports a burglary charge under the Model Penal Code.
Pamela Phillips, after leaving government service, seeks to represent a private client adverse to a person about whom she holds confidential government information. The ethics rule prohibits the representation because the information could materially disadvantage that person.
Perry Pratt receives permission to enter land to inspect equipment but later receives notice that consent is withdrawn. His continued presence after learning of the revocation terminates the privilege and exposes him to trespass liability.
Federal Rule of Evidence 501 provides that the common law as interpreted by United States courts in light of reason and experience governs a claim of privilege unless the Constitution, a federal statute, or Supreme Court rules provide otherwise. In civil cases, state law governs privilege when state law supplies the rule of decision.
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A party need not produce documents or other evidentiary material that is privileged or protected from disclosure when making initial disclosures of damages computations. If privileged information is inadvertently produced, the producing party may notify the recipient and require return or sequestration until the claim is resolved.
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A declarant is unavailable as a witness if exempted from testifying about the subject matter because the court rules that a privilege applies. This unavailability can support admission of the declarant's prior statements under hearsay exceptions.
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Consent creates only a limited privilege that terminates upon revocation of which the actor knows or has reason to know, upon expiration of any specified time period, or upon occurrence of any restricting event. The actor retains only a privilege of reasonable egress and removal of things.
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…and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, also a Kentucky corporation, wished that the former should have the exclusive privilege of soliciting passenger and baggage transportation at the Bowling Green, Kentucky, railroad station; and that the Black and White, a competing Kentucky corporation, should be prevented from…