What is actually privileged at a California deposition
Most deposition standoffs get argued as privilege fights when they are not privilege fights at all. The question that decides who wins is narrower: does the ground you just stated let your client stay silent, or does it only preserve something for later?
- What waives a privilege
- Failing to make a specific objection during the deposition. Not a general one, and not one made afterwards CCP 2025.460(a)
- What cannot support an instruction
- Competency, relevancy, materiality and admissibility at trial. Those objections are unnecessary and are never waived, so there is nothing to protect by refusing CCP 2025.460(c)
- The only three grounds
- Privilege or work product, a limit the court already ordered, or suspension to move for a protective order. Everything else proceeds subject to the objection CCP 2025.460(b), 2025.420, 2025.470
- How far the medical waiver reaches
- Only the conditions the plaintiff actually tendered. Not a lifetime history Britt v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 844; Evid. Code 996
- Mental health
- Garden variety distress tenders nothing. A diagnosable, ongoing, causally specific claim opens that condition and no other Roberts v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 330; Vinson v. Superior Court (1987) 43 Cal.3d 833; Evid. Code 1016
- Who referred you to that doctor
- Answer it. Neither privilege nor work product reaches a fact the client lived through Qaadir v. Figueroa (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 790
- Immigration status
- In a personal injury or wrongful death case, inadmissible and not discoverable. No balancing and no showing. This is the one subject where an instruction is clean Evid. Code 351.2(a)
- Cost of guessing wrong
- Monetary sanctions are mandatory against whoever loses the motion to compel, absent substantial justification CCP 2025.480(j)
On this page
What actually lets your client stay silent
Three grounds, and the one everybody reaches for is not one of them.
Privilege and work product are waived unless a specific objection to disclosure is timely made during the deposition. CCP 2025.460(a). Objections to the competency of the deponent, or to the relevancy, materiality or admissibility at trial of the testimony, are "unnecessary and are not waived by failure to make them before or during the deposition." CCP 2025.460(c). Read those two subdivisions together and the practical rule falls out: the first kind of objection has to be made or you lose the protection, and the second kind cannot support an instruction not to answer, because there is nothing to protect by refusing.
That leaves three grounds. A privilege or work product protection, a limitation the court has already ordered, and a suspension to move for a protective order because the examination is being conducted in bad faith or in a manner that unreasonably annoys, embarrasses or oppresses. CCP 2025.420, 2025.470. Absent a demand to suspend for that motion, CCP 2025.460(b) says the deposition "shall proceed subject to the objection."
Guessing wrong is expensive in both directions. The court shall impose a monetary sanction against any party, person or attorney "who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel an answer or production," unless it finds substantial justification or that other circumstances make the sanction unjust. CCP 2025.480(j). That cuts at the lawyer who instructs on a bad ground and at the lawyer who moves on a good one. Tucker v. Pacific Bell Mobile Services (2010) 186 Cal.App.4th 1548; Stewart v. Colonial Western Agency, Inc. (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 1006.
Medical: the tender defines the waiver, not the complaint
Filing a personal injury case does not open the file. It opens the conditions you put in issue.
Britt v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 844 vacated an order compelling plaintiffs to disclose lifetime medical histories. The patient-litigant exception in Evid. Code 996 opens the conditions tendered and nothing else. Hallendorf v. Superior Court (1978) 85 Cal.App.3d 553 applied that to a plaintiff claiming arm and shoulder injuries, who did not have to name every doctor who had ever treated him.
Britt cuts the other way too, and this is the part plaintiffs' counsel forget. Where several injuries contributed to the condition in issue, the defendant gets all of them. A plaintiff claiming respiratory harm opens the whole respiratory history, including the part this defendant had nothing to do with.
Mental health is stronger ground. Under Evid. Code 1016 the waiver is limited rather than total, In re Lifschutz (1970) 2 Cal.3d 415, and a boilerplate allegation of being sick, sore, lame and disabled does not tender a mental condition at all. Roberts v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 330. Garden variety distress keeps the psychotherapy records closed. A diagnosable, ongoing, causally specific claim opens them, and only as to that condition. Compare Vinson v. Superior Court (1987) 43 Cal.3d 833 and Doyle v. Superior Court (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 1878 with Roberts. Even after a statutory waiver the constitutional privacy right survives independently. Fish v. Superior Court (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 811.
HIPAA is not an answer at a deposition
It sets a federal floor and preserves more protective state law. At a California deposition it gives the deponent nothing California law does not already give, and reaching for it instead of Evid. Code 996 or 1016 tells the other side you have not done the work.
Did your lawyer send you to that doctor
Plaintiff's counsel object to this reflexively and they lose.
Qaadir v. Figueroa (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 790 held it was error to sustain a relevance objection when defense counsel asked whether plaintiff's attorney had referred him to the lien physicians. The theory is bias, and it is a good one: a provider who wants future referrals and understands that the lawyer benefits from a larger bill has an incentive to write a larger bill.
Neither privilege nor work product reaches it. Knowledge does not become privileged because it was also communicated to a lawyer. San Francisco Unified School Dist. v. Superior Court (1961) 55 Cal.2d 451. The client is being deposed about a fact he personally lived through, not a writing reflecting counsel's impressions, so CCP 2018.030 is not in play. The analogy to Coito v. Superior Court (2012) 54 Cal.4th 480 fails, because Coito was about attorney-directed witness statements and not about facts inside the client's own head.
The payment structure is equally open. Treating physicians carry no special discovery protection. Schreiber v. Estate of Kiser (1999) 22 Cal.4th 31. Lien agreements, letters of protection, and the provider's contract selling the lien to a medical finance company are discoverable. Moore v. Mercer (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 424. Whether the plaintiff had insurance and chose to treat outside it drives the damages measure. Pebley v. Santa Clara Organics, LLC (2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 1266; Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc. (2011) 52 Cal.4th 541. The collateral source rule is an admissibility rule. Save it for a motion in limine.
How did you find your lawyer, and did you see an ad
The identity of a referral source is conduct. What was said once the call connected is a confidence.
The bare identity of a referral source is a fact about the client's conduct, not a communication, and it is not privileged. Client identity and the fact of a consultation generally are not protected. Brunner v. Superior Court (1959) 51 Cal.2d 616; People ex rel. Herrera v. Stender (2012) 212 Cal.App.4th 614. Neither is the date of first contact. Whether the client answered a mailer or called a number off a billboard is conduct.
Protected is everything said once the call connected, including during intake before anyone was hired. Kerner v. Superior Court (2012) 206 Cal.App.4th 84. Acknowledging that a conversation happened does not waive its contents. Mitchell v. Superior Court (1984) 37 Cal.3d 591. The written fee contract is deemed a confidential communication within Evid. Code 952 by Bus. & Prof. Code 6149, which is the route to the privilege, and Hanna v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 493 shows how fast that evaporates when a copy gets handed over at a deposition without an objection.
The capper and runner statutes do not open the privilege
This is the part defense counsel overstate. Bus. & Prof. Code 6151 through 6154 do not change the analysis. California's privilege is statutory and courts cannot invent exceptions to it. Chubb & Son v. Superior Court (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 1094; Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP v. Superior Court (2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 1214.
The only door is the crime-fraud exception in Evid. Code 956, which takes a prima facie evidentiary showing rather than an accusation, Dickerson v. Superior Court (1982) 135 Cal.App.3d 93; Geilim v. Superior Court (1991) 234 Cal.App.3d 166, and reaches only a relationship embarked on in furtherance of the crime with the client's active participation. People v. Superior Court (Bauman & Rose) (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 1757. It does not touch work product.
Where the referral source is a treating doctor or a public adjuster whose identity itself discloses the condition or the pre-litigation investigation, a privacy objection under article I, section 1 becomes real. That is a different objection from privilege and it belongs in the privacy section below.
Money, and what you plan to do with the recovery
Tax returns have a privilege. Bank records have a balancing test. They are not the same fight.
Tax returns carry a statutory privilege implied from Rev. & Tax. Code 19282, covering state and federal returns, Webb v. Standard Oil Co. (1957) 49 Cal.2d 509, sales tax returns, Sav-On Drugs, Inc. v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 1, and corporate and payroll returns. Schnabel v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 704. It yields only to intentional waiver, a lawsuit whose gravamen is inconsistent with it, or a narrowly construed legislative policy. Handing returns to a bank on a loan application is not a waiver. Fortunato v. Superior Court (2003) 114 Cal.App.4th 475.
Bank records and net worth have no statutory privilege, only constitutional privacy and a balancing test. Valley Bank of Nevada v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 652, recalibrated by Williams v. Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, which rejected a universal compelling-interest requirement in favour of weighing the strength of the interest, the seriousness of the intrusion and the alternatives. A defendant's financial condition is separately gated by Civ. Code 3295(c), which requires a substantial probability of prevailing on punitive damages, meaning very likely rather than merely triable. Jabro v. Superior Court (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 754.
Then the construction defect question. Intent to repair is fair game. Intended use of the proceeds is not. Cost of repair exceeding diminution in value is recoverable only where the owner has a personal reason to restore the property and the repairs will in fact be made. Heninger v. Dunn (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 858; Orndorff v. Christiana Community Builders (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 683; Safeco Ins. Co. v. J & D Painting (1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 1199. Intent is part of that measure, so the defendant can ask. But no California authority makes the post-recovery use of the money an element of anything, and selling the property does not extinguish the claim. Vaughn v. Dame Construction Co. (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 144. "What will you spend the settlement on" belongs in a protective order motion if counsel will not drop it.
Immigration status
The one subject on this page where an instruction not to answer is clean.
"In a civil action for personal injury or wrongful death, evidence of a person's immigration status shall not be admitted into evidence, nor shall discovery into a person's immigration status be permitted." Evid. Code 351.2(a)
Categorical. No balancing, no showing, and no exception for a lost earnings claim. Within personal injury and wrongful death it displaces the preliminary-hearing framework of Rodriguez v. Kline (1986) 186 Cal.App.3d 1145, and Velasquez v. Centrome, Inc. (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 1191 had already held the subject irrelevant where no lost earnings were claimed.
Two limits worth knowing before you rely on it. Evid. Code 351.2(b) preserves the standards in Civ. Code 3339, Gov. Code 7285, Health & Saf. Code 24000 and Lab. Code 1171.5. And the bar is keyed to the kind of action: in a civil action not governed by section 351.2, Evid. Code 351.3 is the operative rule, and it only requires an in camera ruling before disclosure in open court rather than barring the subject. Section 351.3 does not apply at all where status is necessary to prove an element of a claim or an affirmative defense. Evid. Code 351.3(b)(1). In the labour and employment setting Lab. Code 1171.5(b) demands clear and convincing evidence that the inquiry is needed to comply with federal law. Manuel v. Superior Court (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th 719.
The HOA board, adjusters and consultants
The association holds the privilege. The individual homeowner does not.
Seahaus La Jolla Owners Assn. v. Superior Court (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 754 is the case to know. Defendants tried to depose individual homeowners about what the association's counsel had told them at litigation update meetings. The court held those communications privileged under the common interest doctrine, operating through Evid. Code 912 and 952, because the disclosures were reasonably necessary to the purpose for which the association's lawyers were retained and the owners' interests were aligned. It warned that mining those meetings shifts the case from the defendants' conduct to what plaintiffs' lawyers said.
The limits matter as much as the holding. The association holds the privilege, not the individual owners. Smith v. Laguna Sur Villas Community Assn. (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 639. The joint client exception in Evid. Code 962 applies only where the same lawyer was retained. OXY Resources California LLC v. Superior Court (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 874. Consultant communications are covered only where the disclosure was reasonably necessary to the legal advice, and there is no freestanding consultant privilege. Behunin v. Superior Court (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 833.
The adjuster and the non-testifying consultant
A public adjuster the owner hired before counsel came in is not automatically work product, and treating it as though it were is how the objection gets lost.
A non-testifying consultant's opinions are qualified work product and the identity can be protected on a foundational showing. Curtis v. Superior Court (2021) 62 Cal.App.5th 453. Designation as a trial expert waives it. DeLuca v. State Fish Co., Inc. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 671.
The genuinely unsettled part
Two propositions are both in the books and they do not sit together.
Privacy is not listed in the Evidence Code as a privilege, and the practice guides say a privacy objection preserves the issue but does not support an instruction not to answer. The route they prescribe is to note the objection and suspend to seek a protective order.
"Accordingly, a litigant may invoke the constitutional right to privacy as justification for refusing to answer questions that unreasonably intrude on that right." John B. v. Superior Court (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1177, 1199, citing Britt, 20 Cal.3d at p. 855
Both propositions are in the books, and which one the judge reaches for depends on how serious the intrusion looks in hindsight. The workable practice is to state the privacy ground, instruct only where the subject is genuinely intimate, and be ready to explain why suspension and a protective order were not realistic in the moment. Assume you are paying fees if you guess wrong on a marginal subject.
What breaks if you get this wrong
Four ways a deposition objection turns out to have done nothing, or the opposite of what you wanted.
A privilege stated loosely, or stated after the answer
CCP 2025.460(a) waives privilege and work product unless a specific objection is timely made during the deposition. A general objection preserves nothing, and there is no later proceeding in which you get to make the specific one.
Letting the fee agreement leave the table
Hanna v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 493. The written fee contract is deemed a confidential communication under Bus. & Prof. Code 6149, and handing a copy over at a deposition without an objection is how that protection disappears.
Instructing on relevance, materiality or admissibility
Those objections are unnecessary and are never waived, CCP 2025.460(c), so the instruction protects nothing and you lose the motion to compel. Losing it triggers mandatory sanctions under CCP 2025.480(j) absent substantial justification. The deposition gets finished, and you pay for the second session.
A privacy instruction on a marginal subject
John B., 38 Cal.4th at p. 1199, says a litigant may refuse questions that unreasonably intrude, and the practice guides say to suspend instead. On an intimate subject the first line holds. On a merely uncomfortable one you are explaining to the judge why you did not suspend, and paying fees.
Before the next deposition
- Write down the tender. List the exact conditions the complaint puts in issue. That list is the boundary of the medical waiver, and it is what you read into the record when the questioning drifts.
- Decide in advance which subjects get an instruction. Attorney-client, work product, tax return contents, and immigration status in a personal injury or wrongful death case. Everything else is an objection on the record.
- Never let a fee agreement leave the table without an objection. Hanna is the whole lesson.
- Prepare the client to answer who referred him and when he called, then stop. Rehearse the stopping point, because that is where clients volunteer.
- Prepare the client to answer the doctor referral and lien questions. After Qaadir the objection loses, and fighting it makes the answer look worse than it is.
- Calendar 60 days from completion of the record if you were the one blocked. That is the CCP 2025.480(b) window, it does not restart, and the motion needs a meet and confer declaration under CCP 2016.040.
The local layer
There is not much of one, and that is worth saying plainly. A deposition objection is not a filing, so no county rule governs what you say on the record or when you say it. The statutes above are statewide and they do not vary by department.
What varies is what happens after. Whether a department wants an informal discovery conference before it will hear a motion to compel, how long the motion takes to get on calendar, and whether a request to shorten time comes back as a conference instead, are all department-level questions, and the department's standing order is the answer.