ARTHUR ALAN ADLER III, Plaintiff v. SUZANNE ADLER, Defendant, 2012 D.C. Super. LEXIS 10

Summary

In child custody litigation, a father filed a motion for leave to conduct discovery of the mother's confidential mental health treatment information, alleging such information would be relevant to his claim that her mental illness made her unfit to have custody or unsupervised visitation. The motion was not well taken because the child custody statute, D.C. Code § 16-914 (2012), did not create an implied exception in custody cases to the statutory privilege, set forth in D.C. Code § 14-307 (2011 Supp.), protecting the confidentiality of mental health treatment information.