Rutledge v. Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that “[a] criminal defendant does not put his medical condition at issue simply by proclaiming his innocence”
• privilege prevented use of evidence obtained from driver’s blood sample in prosecution for negligent homicide
• disclosure in drunk driving setting may be essential if defendant was seriously injured and transported to hospital without police having adequate opportunity to obtain essential evidence of defendant’s intoxication
• litigant did not place condition at issue by pleading not guilty
• although “the physician-patient privilege is not absolute and will yield when the disclosure of information is essential,” where other sources of information are available, the effective enforcement of drunk driving laws, though compelling, is not grounds for piercing the privilege
• “A criminal defendant does not put his medical condition at issue simply by proclaiming his innocence. To hold otherwise would allow the State to defeat the physician-patient privilege simply by accusing a defendant of a crime. We do not-believe the legislature intended that result.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).