Phipps v. Sasser

Two superior court decisions are before us for review, each on a writ of certiorari. We deal with them in this single opinion because each raises the same question: Whether, and if so, when and to what extent a personal-injury plaintiff may be held to have waived his statutory physician-patient privilege1 before actual trial, thereby en*441titling defendant to pretrial discovery as to medical experts otherwise covered by that privilege?

Anthony Appolito, one party-plaintiff in Phipps, Administrator, and Anthony Appolito v. Sasser (hereinafter referred to as the Appolito case), was injured in a…