Maida v. Diocese of Brooklyn: Waiver of Clergy, Physician, and Psychologist Privileges and Disclosure of Other Victims in Child Victims Act Discovery

I. Introduction

The Appellate Division, Second Department’s decision in Maida v. Diocese of Brooklyn, 2025 NY Slip Op 06314 (Nov. 19, 2025), is a significant discovery and privilege opinion in the steadily expanding body of New York Child Victims Act (“CVA”) litigation. While the underlying lawsuit concerns alleged clerical sexual abuse in the late 1970s, the appeal itself is a focused interlocutory dispute about discovery: what portions of a priest’s “clergy file” a plaintiff is entitled to see, and what protections statutory privileges and privacy rules afford to the Church and to other alleged victims.

The plaintiff, Eric Maida, alleges that as a 12–15 year-old parishioner, student, and altar boy between approximately 1977 and 1980, he was sexually abused by Father James O’Brien, a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. In 2020, relying on the revival window created by the CVA (CPLR 214-g), he sued the Diocese for negligent hiring, retention, and supervision, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The complaint alleges that the Diocese knew or should have known of O’Brien’s propensity to abuse children.

During discovery, the Diocese produced a redacted version of O’Brien’s clergy file, claiming that the redacted materials were protected by three CPLR article 45 privileges:

the clergy-penitent privilege (CPLR 4505);
the physician-patient privilege (CPLR 4504); and
the psychologist-patient privilege (CPLR 4507).

Maida moved to compel the production of unredacted pages; the Diocese cross-moved for a protective order under CPLR 3103(a). After an in camera review, Supreme Court, Kings County (Love, J.), ordered the Diocese to produce certain unredacted pages and denied the Diocese’s request for a protective order as to those pages. The Diocese appealed.

Presiding Justice Dillon, writing for a unanimous panel, uses this discovery dispute to address three substantial legal questions:

Whether progress reports and letters from a psychological treatment facility to a bishop about an alleged pedophile priest are protected by the clergy-penitent privilege (CPLR 4505);
Whether those same reports and letters are shielded by physician-patient (CPLR 4504) and psychologist-patient (CPLR 4507) privileges, or whether those privileges were waived by disclosure to the Diocese; and
In CVA cases, when a plaintiff may discover the unredacted identities of other alleged abuse victims of the same priest, and how that differs from victims of other alleged abusers.

The court also takes the opportunity to clarify the interplay between unredacted discovery and the public redaction requirements of the Uniform Rules for Trial Courts (22 NYCRR 202.5[e]), and to reject an attempt to invoke federal substance-abuse confidentiality rules.

The result is a precedent-setting opinion that:

confines the scope of the clergy-penitent privilege in institutional abuse cases;
harmonizes the Second Department’s approach to waiver of medical and psychological privileges with that of the First and Third Departments, while cabining its earlier decision in Friel v. Papa;
formally adopts, for the Second Department, the rule that identities of other alleged victims of the same abuser are generally discoverable in CVA actions; and
reconciles robust discovery for plaintiffs with privacy protections for nonparty victims via the court system’s redaction rules.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Appellate Division affirms the Supreme Court’s order “insofar as appealed from,” meaning the Diocese must produce the contested unredacted pages from O’Brien’s clergy file.

Core holdings:

Clergy-penitent privilege (CPLR 4505) does not apply.
The progress reports and letters from the mental health treatment facility to Auxiliary Bishop Anthony J. Bevilacqua, concerning O’Brien’s treatment and potential return to parish duties, are not “confessions or confidences” made to a clergyperson in a spiritual advisory capacity. They concern mental health treatment and employment decisions, not spiritual counseling, and therefore fall outside CPLR 4505.
Physician-patient and psychologist-patient privileges (CPLR 4504 and 4507) are waived.
Although the progress reports and letters qualify as medical/psychological communications, the court holds that O’Brien waived these privileges by authorizing the facility to send progress reports to his bishop. Disclosure to a third party who is not part of the treatment relationship vitiates the privilege. The Diocese is not the holder of the privilege and cannot assert it. Even if some derivative privilege existed, the Diocese failed to prove a narrow, limited waiver of the sort recognized in Friel v. Papa.
Identities of other alleged victims of the same priest are discoverable.
The court expressly adopts the approach of the First and Third Departments (Harmon v. Diocese of Albany; T.B. v. Roman Catholic Archdiocese of N.Y.; J.L. v. Archdiocese of N.Y.): in CVA cases, courts may, in their discretion, compel disclosure of the unredacted names and contact information of other alleged abuse victims of the same alleged abuser, where no contrary privilege is shown. However, the identities of victims of other alleged abusers should be redacted. Because all the individuals at issue in Maida are alleged victims of O’Brien, their identifying information is discoverable without redaction (as between the parties).
Distinction between discovery and public court filings under 22 NYCRR 202.5(e).
While unredacted identities may be produced in discovery, documents filed with the court that would become part of the public record must omit or redact “confidential personal information” (CPI). Courts retain discretion to require resubmission with necessary omissions and to receive unredacted copies under seal.
Federal substance-abuse confidentiality rules do not apply.
The Diocese’s reliance on 42 U.S.C. § 290dd-2 and 42 C.F.R. part 2 is rejected because those provisions pertain to substance use disorder records in federally assisted programs. No such context was shown here.

Accordingly, the order compelling disclosure is affirmed, with costs against the Diocese.

III. Analytical Framework: Discoverability Under CPLR 3101

The opinion situates its privilege analysis within New York’s broad discovery regime. CPLR 3101(a) mandates:

“There shall be full disclosure of all matter material and necessary in the prosecution or defense of an action.”

Key points from the court’s overview:

The phrase “material and necessary” is to be interpreted liberally to require disclosure “of any facts bearing on the controversy which will assist preparation for trial by sharpening the issues and reducing delay and prolixity” (citing Ferrick v. Diocese of Brooklyn, 239 AD3d 600, and Matter of Kapon v. Koch, 23 NY3d 32).
Discoverable material includes information that may lead to admissible proof, even if the information itself is not ultimately admissible (Holloway v. Orthodox Church in Am., 232 AD3d 773).
Personnel records are typically discoverable in negligent hiring, retention, and supervision cases (Holloway; Blanco v. County of Suffolk).
The supervision of discovery is within the “sound discretion” of the trial court.

Against that backdrop, statutory privileges in CPLR article 45 are “limits” on otherwise broad discovery. The Diocese invoked three such limits: clergy-penitent, physician-patient, and psychologist-patient. The Appellate Division’s analysis proceeds privilege by privilege, against this general presumption in favor of discovery.

IV. The Clergy-Penitent Privilege (CPLR 4505)

A. Scope and Policy of CPLR 4505

CPLR 4505 provides, in relevant part, that:

“a clergyman, or other minister of any religion or duly accredited Christian Science practitioner, shall not be allowed [to] disclose a confession or confidence made to him [or her] in his [or her] professional character as spiritual advisor.”

The court underscores several doctrinal points drawn from leading authorities such as Matter of Keenan v. Gigante (47 NY2d 160), People v. Carmona (82 NY2d 603), and more recent Second Department cases:

The privilege was not recognized at common law; it reflects a modern policy choice to promote candid spiritual counseling.
The statutory reference to “any religion” makes the privilege non-denominational; it applies across faith traditions (Cox v. Miller, 296 F3d 89, applying New York law).
“Confession” refers to the sacrament of Penance in the Catholic context, whereas “confidence” is broader and covers private communications seeking spiritual guidance in any faith tradition.
The privilege does not apply to secular conversations that happen to be with a clergyperson; the clergyperson must be acting in a “professional character as spiritual advisor.”

Two additional structural features are critical:

Holder of the privilege.
The privilege belongs to the congregant/penitent, not to the clergyperson or the religious institution (Lightman v. Flaum, 97 NY2d 128; L.F. v. M.A., 78 Misc 3d 787). Only the congregant may waive it.
Waiver.
Waiver may be express or implied. Implied waiver can occur, for example, where:
- a third party is present during the confidential communication (Lightman; People v. Brown, 82 Misc 2d 115);
- the congregant directs the clergyperson to disclose the information to a third party (People v. Dixon, 199 AD2d 332); or
- the congregant later reveals to others the substance of the allegedly confidential communication.

In each case, the central idea is that confidentiality is inconsistent with sharing the content (or its existence) beyond the spiritual advisory relationship.

B. Why the Progress Reports and Letters Are Not Privileged Under CPLR 4505

The Diocese argued that the progress reports and letters sent to O’Brien’s bishop (through Auxiliary Bishop Bevilacqua) were privileged because they were part of the bishop’s spiritual counseling duties to the priest.

The court rejects this characterization for several reasons:

Authorship and content.
The documents were written by staff of the mental health facility, not by O’Brien himself, and were about his mental health treatment and “treatment progress,” not about spiritual matters or confessional disclosures. They “were not authored in connection with religious absolution or for spiritual advice or counseling.”
Purpose: employment, not spiritual direction.
The records indicate that the Diocese was paying for O’Brien’s treatment and that the staff hoped their work would “be of service to you and your diocese.” The court reads this as oriented primarily toward determining whether O’Brien could be safely returned to parish duties—a secular, employment-related concern:
“further underscoring that the treatment was related more to the priest's future employment and duties with the Diocese, which are secular considerations outside the scope of CPLR 4505, than to the priest's personal spiritual counseling within the scope of the statute.”
Monsignor Hernandez’s affidavit is not determinative.
Monsignor Hernandez attested that the bishop is obligated to provide spiritual counseling and support priests’ physical and mental well-being. The court does not dispute that obligation, but finds the affidavit irrelevant to the legal question:
- The issue is not whether some bishop-priest interactions may be spiritually privileged, but whether these specific documents were communications made to the bishop in his capacity as spiritual advisor.
- On their face, the documents concern mental health and staffing decisions, not spiritual advice.

Given these factors, the court holds that the progress reports and letters fall outside the clergy-penitent privilege. The Diocese therefore may not rely on CPLR 4505 to resist their disclosure.

C. Significance of the Clergy-Privilege Holding

This aspect of Maida is especially important in institutional abuse cases involving religious entities:

It draws a clear doctrinal line: routing medical or psychological reports through a bishop does not automatically cloak them with spiritual privilege.
It reinforces that the content and purpose of the communication, not the status of the recipient alone, determine whether CPLR 4505 applies.
It prevents religious institutions from converting secular employment or risk-management documents into shielded spiritual communications by mere labeling or internal practice.

Future litigants can expect courts to examine clergy files with a close eye on whether the documents truly reflect “confessions” or “confidences” made for spiritual guidance, or instead are primarily secular evaluations relevant to employment, risk management, or legal exposure.

V. Physician-Patient and Psychologist-Patient Privileges (CPLR 4504 and 4507)

A. General Principles and Policy

CPLR 4504(a) broadly bars:

“a person authorized to practice medicine, registered professional nursing, licensed practical nursing, dentistry, podiatry or chiropractic”

from disclosing:

“any information which he [or she] acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity, and which was necessary to enable him [or her] to act in that capacity.”

From cases such as Matter of Grand Jury Proceedings [Doe] (56 NY2d 348), Matter of Camperlengo v. Blum (56 NY2d 251), Siegel v. Snyder (202 AD3d 125), and Dillenbeck v. Hess (73 NY2d 278), the court recites key principles:

The privilege protects both the patient and the professional from compelled disclosure of qualifying communications.
It encompasses oral statements and written medical records, including a professional’s non-obvious observations of symptoms.
Its purpose is to encourage patients to seek treatment and be candid about sensitive information.

CPLR 4507 extends analogous protection to communications and records between psychologists and their patients, but with an important twist: it explicitly places psychologist-patient confidentiality “on the same basis” as attorney-client privilege, not as physician-patient.

The opinion underscores the consequences of this alignment by referencing People v. Wilkins (65 NY2d 172), where the Court of Appeals held that a criminal defendant who testified about his mental state did not thereby waive his psychologist-patient privilege to permit the prosecution to compel his psychologist to testify. Attorney-client privilege would not allow an attorney to be turned into a prosecution witness; CPLR 4507 adopts the same stance for psychologists.

Thus:

Physician-patient privilege is robust but can be impliedly waived more readily (e.g., by putting one’s physical condition at issue).
Psychologist-patient privilege is often treated as even stricter, tracking attorney-client rules; waiver doctrine is correspondingly narrower and more carefully scrutinized.

In both contexts, however, the privilege belongs to the patient, and only the patient can waive it, expressly or impliedly.

B. Waiver by Disclosure to Third Parties

The court highlights a particularly relevant form of implied waiver: when the patient voluntarily discloses privileged information to a third party unconnected to the provision of medical or psychological services and not bound by its own privilege.

In such situations, courts have long held that the privilege is lost. The opinion cites:

People v. Bloom, 193 NY 1 (disclosure to a non-privileged third party vitiates physician-patient privilege);
People v. Martinez, 22 AD3d 318; and
Matter of Farrow v. Allen, 194 AD2d 40 (1st Dept).

The rationale mirrors that for clergy-penitent privilege: confidentiality is inconsistent with voluntary disclosure outside the privileged relationship. Once the patient authorizes such disclosure, he or she cannot subsequently insist that others remain bound by the privilege for those communications.

C. Split Among Departments and the “Friel Exception”

The opinion identifies a doctrinal tension between the First/Third Departments and the Second Department:

The First and Third Departments (e.g., State of New York v. General Elec. Co., 201 AD2d 802; Farrow) generally hold that any voluntary disclosure to a third party destroys the privilege in its entirety.
The Second Department, however, has recognized a narrow carve-out in Friel v. Papa, 87 AD3d 1108.
- In Friel, a priest accused of misconduct underwent counseling and later signed a “narrowly-drawn authorization” allowing his bishop to review his counseling records solely for the purpose of deciding whether he could return to pastoral duties.
- The court held that this limited authorization did not open the door to full disclosure of the priest’s counseling records to others (including the plaintiff in that case).

This creates what the Maida court terms, and treats as, a “Friel exception”: where a patient’s waiver expressly and narrowly limits disclosure to an employer for staffing decisions, the privilege is not deemed waived vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

D. Application in Maida: Why the Privileges Are Waived

The progress reports and letters in O’Brien’s clergy file were prepared by the mental health facility and sent to Bishop Bevilacqua in 1982–1983. Critically, one letter states that:

“O'Brien has given us written permission to send progress reports to you.”

From this, the court draws several conclusions:

There was a voluntary, written authorization by O’Brien.
He affirmatively consented to the disclosure of progress reports to his bishop.
Disclosure was to a third party outside the treatment relationship.
The bishop/Diocese was not providing medical or psychological treatment and was not itself cloaked by any independent professional privilege. The disclosure therefore fits squarely within the line of cases holding that voluntary disclosure to a non-privileged third party destroys the physician/psychologist-patient privilege for the information disclosed.
The Diocese is not the privilege holder and cannot assert it.
The court emphasizes:
“the alleged pedophile priest is not a named defendant and has not asserted any privilege over the records and letters. The Diocese, as a third party to O'Brien's mental health treatment, is not the holder of any physician-patient or psychologist-patient privilege to assert (see CPLR 4504, 4507; Dillenbeck v Hess, 73 NY2d at 289; Iseman v Delmar Med.-Dental Bldg., 113 AD2d 276, 279).”
Even if the materials are prima facie privileged, the only person who could assert that privilege—O’Brien—is absent and silent.
No evidence supports a Friel-style limited waiver.
The Diocese did not produce O’Brien’s written authorization, so the court cannot determine whether it contained narrow limitations like those in Friel. The Diocese bears the burden of proving the privilege and any limitation on waiver:
“Without producing O'Brien's authorization for the court to determine its scope and limitations, if any, the Diocese cannot sustain its burden of proof that, under the strictest reading of Friel, there is any expressed limitation imposed on the disclosure of the materials as to fit within this Judicial Department's ‘Friel exception’.”
In contrast, in Friel the narrow language was before the court and expressly limited disclosure.

On these facts, the court concludes:

The general rule—that voluntary disclosure to a third party vitiates the privilege—applies.
The Second Department’s law, as articulated in S.E. v. Diocese of Brooklyn and now in Maida, is consistent with the First and Third Departments absent a true Friel-type narrow authorization.
Because the Diocese has not proven any such limitation, no “Friel exception” is available.

Accordingly, the physician-patient and psychologist-patient privileges were waived as to the progress reports and letters actually disclosed to the bishop, and the Diocese cannot use CPLR 4504 or 4507 to block their discovery.

E. Significance of the Medical/Psychological Privilege Rulings

The Maida decision has several important consequences:

Clarified alignment across Departments. The Second Department now explicitly states that, subject to the narrow Friel carve-out, it applies the same broad waiver rule as the First and Third Departments—disclosure to a non-privileged third party (like an employer) generally destroys confidentiality for that information.
Narrowing of Friel. The “Friel exception” is confirmed to be:
- strictly limited to cases with clear, express, narrow authorizations; and
- unavailable where such documentation is not produced and where the proponent cannot meet its burden to prove the scope of the waiver.
Institutions cannot “own” others’ medical privilege. Religious or other employers who receive medical/psychological reports cannot unilaterally assert privilege that belongs to the patient, particularly where the patient has already consented to disclosure to that employer.
Practical caution for mental health providers and employers. Providers should clearly explain the implications of waivers authorizing disclosures to employers or institutions; once such disclosure occurs, the institution may be compelled to turn over those same documents in later litigation.

For CVA and other institutional abuse cases, the effect is that psychological evaluations and progress reports shared with diocesan leadership regarding accused clergy are likely to be discoverable, absent a very carefully crafted and documented limited-purpose waiver—and even then, the institution cannot assert the privilege if the patient does not.

VI. Discovery of Identities of Other Alleged Victims

A. The Emerging Rule from Other Departments

The opinion surveys, and adopts, the framework developed in:

Harmon v. Diocese of Albany, 204 AD3d 1270 (3d Dept);
T.B. v. Roman Catholic Archdiocese of N.Y., 237 AD3d 529 (1st Dept); and
J.L. v. Archdiocese of N.Y., 236 AD3d 569 (1st Dept).

From these cases, a coherent pattern emerges:

Names and identifying information of other alleged victims of sexual abuse by the same priest or abuser are discoverable, absent a specific privilege or countervailing showing, because:
- They are directly relevant to the institution’s actual or constructive notice of the abuser’s propensity; and
- Those individuals are potential fact witnesses on issues central to liability (what the institution knew or should have known, what was reported, and how it responded).
By contrast, the names and identifiers of victims of other alleged abusers (e.g., other priests) may be redacted. Such information goes more to general institutional culture or patterns, and the privacy intrusion may outweigh its marginal relevance, at least at routine discovery stages.

B. Adoption in Maida and Application to O’Brien’s Alleged Victims

The Second Department expressly endorses this approach:

“We find the holdings of Harmon, T.B., and J.L. to be sound, and applicable in the Second Department in distinguishing, for discovery purposes, identifying information of alleged sexual abuse victims of the accused priest from alleged victims of other persons.”

Applying these principles, the court notes that all the individuals whose names and contact details are at issue in Maida are alleged victims of O’Brien himself. Therefore:

Their identities are relevant to (and may be critical for) proving actual or constructive notice of O’Brien’s alleged propensity to abuse children.
They are potential fact and notice witnesses with respect to the Diocese’s knowledge and response.
No overriding privilege was demonstrated that would shield their identities at the discovery stage.

Consequently, their names and contact information must be disclosed to the plaintiff “without redaction” as part of discovery.

C. Relationship to Negligent Hiring/Retention Theories

In negligent hiring, retention, and supervision cases—particularly in the CVA context—proving the institution’s notice of a particular abuser’s dangerous propensities is often central. The decision explicitly links the discoverability of other victims’ identities to these notice issues, citing:

C.T. v. Diocese of Brooklyn, 239 AD3d 784 (notice and propensity evidence); and
Holloway v. Orthodox Church in Am., 232 AD3d 773 (personnel file and notice discovery).

Thus, Maida cements a rule: when the unidentified individuals are alleged victims of the same accused priest, their identities are not mere background—they lie at the heart of the liability analysis and are therefore discoverable.

VII. Distinguishing Discovery from Public Filing: 22 NYCRR 202.5(e)

A. The Redaction Rule and Its Purpose

Justice Dillon adds an important “aside” about the Uniform Rules for Trial Courts, 22 NYCRR 202.5(e). That rule requires, subject to limited exceptions, that papers filed with the court omit or redact “confidential personal information” (CPI) that would otherwise be exposed to the public. The rule applies to:

both e-filed and paper-filed documents; and
parallel provisions exist for other state courts (Court of Claims, City and District Courts).

Although the rule does not explicitly list “names of sexual abuse victims” as CPI, it gives trial courts discretion to:

order removal of CPI from filed papers;
direct resubmission with necessary omissions; and
receive unredacted copies under seal for in camera review.

B. Key Distinction: Party Discovery vs. Public Access

The court draws a crucial distinction:

Discovery between the parties. The plaintiff is entitled to unredacted discovery of other victims’ identities (no “CPI” redaction required in what the Diocese produces to the plaintiff).
Documents filed with the court. If such discovery materials, or references to them, are later filed in motion papers or other filings, they become part of the public court file. At that point, 22 NYCRR 202.5(e) requires that CPI be omitted or redacted from the filed versions, while unredacted copies can be lodged under seal if necessary.

The court “encourages” the bench and bar to be mindful of this rule, especially in sexual abuse cases, to avoid “outing” nonparty alleged victims unintentionally and unnecessarily.

The practical upshot: unredacted disclosure to the plaintiff is permitted and often required, but public dissemination through court filings must respect CPI redaction requirements.

VIII. Miscellaneous: Federal Substance-Abuse Confidentiality Rules

The Diocese contended that its records must be kept confidential under:

42 U.S.C. § 290dd-2; and
42 C.F.R. part 2.

These federal provisions protect the confidentiality of substance use disorder records in connection with federally-assisted programs.

The court rejects this argument summarily, finding “without merit” the attempt to apply those rules here. Crucially:

The Diocese did not demonstrate that the mental health treatment at issue was for a “substance abuse disorder” within the meaning of those federal rules.
Nor did it show that the records were maintained by, or in connection with, a federally-funded substance use disorder program.

This portion of the opinion serves as a cautionary note: litigants cannot invoke highly protective federal confidentiality regimes without a factual basis demonstrating their applicability. Where treatment involves general mental health or behavior issues unrelated to federally defined substance use disorder programs, those federal rules will not apply.

IX. Complex Concepts Simplified

1. Child Victims Act (CVA) and CPLR 214-g

The CVA created a “revival window” allowing survivors of child sexual abuse whose claims were otherwise time-barred to bring civil lawsuits. CPLR 214-g sets forth the relevant revival provision. Maida is one such action: alleged abuse decades earlier, but suit commenced in 2020 under the CVA window.

2. Negligent Hiring, Retention, and Supervision

In claims like those asserted by Maida, a plaintiff does not just allege that an employee (here, Father O’Brien) committed a tort; the plaintiff alleges that the employer (the Diocese) should have:

properly screened the priest before hiring;
monitored and supervised him in light of known risks; and
removed him or restricted his duties when complaints or red flags arose.

Evidence about prior complaints, treatment, and the identities of other victims goes directly to these issues.

3. “Material and Necessary” Discovery

New York’s discovery standard is broad: anything “material and necessary” to a claim or defense, interpreted with flexibility and common sense, is discoverable. This includes:

documents that may lead to admissible evidence;
witness identities; and
personnel files in negligent supervision cases.

However, this broad scope stops where statutory privileges begin.

4. In Camera Review

The trial court reviewed O’Brien’s clergy file “in camera,” meaning privately, in the judge’s chambers, rather than publicly. This allows the judge to examine allegedly privileged documents and decide what, if anything, must be produced, without prematurely revealing potentially protected information to the parties or the public.

5. Protective Orders (CPLR 3103)

Under CPLR 3103, a party can seek a protective order to limit or prevent disclosure that may cause “unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or other prejudice.” The Diocese invoked this provision to argue for a blanket protective order over the redacted clergy file pages. The trial court, and now the Appellate Division, rejected that request for the documents at issue.

6. Confidential Personal Information (CPI)

CPI, as referenced in 22 NYCRR 202.5(e), typically includes:

social security numbers;
birth dates;
financial account numbers; and
other sensitive identifiers.

While the rule does not specifically list victims’ names as CPI, the court’s guidance encourages trial judges to use their discretion to shield sexual abuse victims from unnecessary public exposure in court filings, even if their identities must be shared in discovery.

X. Broader Impact of the Decision

A. On CVA and Sexual Abuse Litigation

Maida is likely to be cited frequently in CVA and analogous “Adult Survivors Act” cases because it:

Confirms that institutions cannot rely on an expansive reading of clergy-penitent privilege to conceal mental health or evaluation records concerning alleged abusers, even when those records are funneled through bishops or other religious superiors.
Better aligns privilege-waiver doctrine statewide, giving plaintiffs in all Departments similar access to critical notice evidence where medical or psychological reports were shared with institutional leadership.
Establishes, in the Second Department, that plaintiffs may discover the identities of other alleged victims of the same abuser, which will be crucial in proving notice and patterns of concealment or inaction.

This combination materially empowers survivors litigating against institutions: they gain access not only to what the institution knew about their own allegations, but also to how it responded to other complaints about the same perpetrator.

B. On Religious and Other Institutional Defendants

For dioceses and other religious institutions, the decision has several practical implications:

Progress reports, evaluations, and treatment summaries about accused clergy, once shared with bishops or other leadership, are at high risk of being discoverable in future litigation.
Attempts to broadly shield such materials under spiritual or medical privileges will be closely scrutinized and, in many cases, rejected.
Institutions must carefully consider:
- how they structure the flow of information from treatment providers to leadership;
- what written authorizations they request from clergy; and
- whether they can realistically expect these documents to remain confidential in light of privilege and waiver rules.

Maida also underscores that while religious institutions have spiritual obligations to their clergy, those obligations do not immunize secular employment and risk-management communications from discovery in civil litigation.

C. On Mental Health and Legal Professionals

Psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health providers, especially those treating professionals at the behest of their employers, should:

be explicit in their informed consent processes about who will receive treatment information and how that might affect privilege and future disclosure;
understand that authorizations to share progress reports with employers may lead to those reports being discoverable later; and
consider how to structure their records to distinguish between treatment notes (potentially more protected) and employer-directed evaluations (likely to be discoverable once shared).

For attorneys, Maida is a reminder that:

Privileges are narrowly construed, and the burden of proving their applicability (including the absence of waiver) rests on the party asserting them.
Failure to produce the underlying authorization or documentation of a purportedly limited waiver may be fatal to a privilege claim, especially under the narrow Friel exception.
They must maintain dual sets of key documents—one full set for internal use and discovery, and redacted versions suitable for public filing under 22 NYCRR 202.5(e).

XI. Conclusion

Maida v. Diocese of Brooklyn is more than a routine discovery ruling. It is a carefully reasoned opinion that:

reaffirms New York’s broad discovery policy in civil litigation, especially in institutional abuse cases;
cabins the scope of the clergy-penitent privilege to genuinely spiritual communications, refusing to extend it to secular mental-health reports used for employment decisions;
clarifies that physician-patient and psychologist-patient privileges are waived when progress reports are voluntarily disclosed to a non-privileged third party, and that institutions cannot assert those privileges on behalf of absent patients;
harmonizes the Second Department’s privilege-waiver jurisprudence with that of the First and Third Departments, while confining the Friel “limited-authority” exception to its facts and demanding strict proof for its application;
adopts, for the Second Department, the rule that plaintiffs in CVA cases may obtain the identities of other alleged victims of the same priest or abuser, recognizing their central role in proving notice and pattern; and
integrates robust party discovery with careful public redaction practices under 22 NYCRR 202.5(e) to protect the privacy of nonparty victims.

By affirming the order compelling disclosure, the Appellate Division underscores that privileges are not to be used as broad shields to obstruct the truth in cases of alleged child sexual abuse. Instead, they are to be applied narrowly and faithfully to their statutory purposes, with waivers recognized where confidentiality has already been compromised by voluntary disclosure.

In the broader legal landscape, Maida strengthens survivors’ access to critical institutional evidence, promotes doctrinal consistency across departments, and offers clear guidance to courts and practitioners navigating the intersection of privilege, privacy, and accountability in some of the most sensitive and consequential litigation New York courts now face.