No Half Measures: Privilege Waiver for Garden-Variety Emotional-Distress Claims
You remember the scene. You know, the scene in Season 3, Episode 12 
of Breaking Bad, where Mike Ehrmantraut, the do-it-all cleaner, hitman, and investigator, gives his “half-measures” speech to Walter White, artfully imploring White to eliminate co-meth-dealer Jesse Pinkman. Ehrmantraut concludes his riveting personal anecdote by saying: “Moral of the story is I chose a half measure when I should have gone all the way.”
Judge Iain D. Johnston, unafraid to employ full measures when addressing thorny privilege issues, as evidenced in my post, Monty Python, Sinatra, and Rejection of the Self-Critical Analysis Privilege, adhered to Ehrmantraut’s directive by ruling that a plaintiff completely waives the federal common-law psychotherapist–patient privilege when he seeks damages for mental-health injuries. This is true even where the plaintiff limits damages to so-called “garden-variety” emotional injuries. Laudicina v. City of Crystal Lake, 2018 WL 5389844 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 29, 2018). You may read the thorough opinion here.
What is “Garden Variety”?
When City of Crystal Lake (Ill.) Police Officer Krzysztof Krol responded to domestic-violence report, Joseph Laudicina, armed with a knife, reportedly lunged at Officer Krol in a threatening manner. Office Krol shot Laudicina,Keep Reading this POP Post