Guillen v. Pierce County

(concurring) — Privileges are the exception, not the rule, and therefore, they are “not lightly created nor expansively construed, for they are in derogation of the search for the truth.” United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 710, 94 S. Ct. 3090, 41 L. Ed. 2d 1039 (1974). Today our court sidesteps this admonition and construes 23 U.S.C. § 409 in a sweeping manner, far beyond that intended and, most importantly, dictated by Congress. While I concur in the result of the majority, I do so only because the majority, not entirely comfortable with its own result, determined that its own…