Abrams v. Jones
| Decision Date | 06 July 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-0184,99-0184 |
| Parties | (Tex. 2000) Laurence Abrams, Petitioner v. Donald Paul Jones, Respondent |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas
[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Justice Owen delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Phillips, Justice Enoch, Justice Abbott, Justice Hankinson, Justice O'Neill, and Justice Gonzales join.
This case presents issues of statutory construction. We are called upon to determine if either section 153.072 of the Family Code or section 611.0045 of the Health and Safety Code allows a parent to demand access to detailed notes of his or her child's conversations with a mental health professional when that parent is not acting on behalf of the child or when the mental health professional believes that releasing the information would be harmful to the child's physical, mental, or emotional health. The Legislature has balanced a child's need for effective treatment and a parent's rights and has imposed some limits on a parent's right of access to confidential mental health records. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and render judgment that Jones take nothing.
The child whose records are at issue is Karissa Jones. Her parents, Donald and Rosemary Jones, divorced when she was about seven years old. Both parents remarried sometime before the present controversy erupted, and Rosemary Jones is now Rosemary Droxler. In the original decree, Karissa's parents were appointed joint managing conservators of her and her younger sister. Two years after the divorce, her father initiated further court proceedings to become the sole managing conservator of his daughters. Litigation ensued for two more years. Karissa's parents ultimately agreed to a modification of the original order, but both parents were retained as joint managing conservators. The modified decree gave Jones certain rights of access to his children's psychological records.
Several months after the modification proceedings were concluded, Rosemary Droxler sought the professional services of a psychologist, Dr. Laurence Abrams, for Karissa. The uncontroverted evidence is that Karissa, who by this time was eleven years old, was agitated and showed signs of sleeplessness and worry. At the time the trial court heard this case, Abrams had seen Karissa six times for about fifty minutes on each occasion.
At the beginning of Abrams's first consultation with Karissa, she was reluctant to talk to him. When Abrams explored that reluctance with her, she told him that she was concerned that he would relate what she had to say to her parents. Abrams responded that he would have to provide a report to her parents, but that he could give them a general description of what was discussed without all the specifics. Abrams and Karissa reached an understanding about what he would and would not tell her parents, and he was thereafter able to establish a rapport with her.
Shortly after Karissa began seeing Abrams, her father (Jones) and his legal counsel met with Abrams and requested that he release all of her records. Abrams gave Jones and his counsel a verbal summary of information, sharing with them the basic subject matter of his consultations with Karissa. Abrams related that Karissa had told him that Jones's new wife (who formerly was Karissa's nanny) had said to Karissa that when she turned twelve, she would have to choose where she lived. Karissa told Abrams that she was afraid there would be more conflict in court between her parents because of this choice. Abrams described Karissa as in a "panic" when he first saw her over what she believed to be her impending decision and an ensuing battle between her parents. Abrams also told Jones that Karissa had said that she leaned toward choosing to live with her father and that she was at times unhappy living with her mother because her mother was away from home more than Karissa liked.
After Abrams had related this information about his sessions with Karissa, Jones told Abrams that no conversations of the nature Abrams had described had occurred between Jones and Karissa or between Karissa and her stepmother. At some point in the dialogue among Abrams, Jones, and Jones's attorney, Abrams either agreed with Jones's counsel or said in response to a question from counsel that Karissa's mother had taken Karissa to see Abrams "to get a leg up on" Jones in court.
A few days after the meeting among Jones, his counsel, and Abrams, Jones's counsel again pressed for Abrams's records in two letters to Abrams. Abrams responded verbally and in writing that releasing the detailed notes about his conversations with Karissa would not be in her best interest. Abrams offered to give his notes to any other psychologist that Jones might choose to replace Abrams as Karissa's counselor, and Abrams explained that Karissa's new psychologist could then determine whether it was in Karissa's best interest to give Abrams's notes to Jones. Jones did not seek another counselor for Karissa, and Abrams did not release his notes to Jones. Abrams continued to treat Karissa until this suit was filed by Jones to compel Abrams to release his notes. The record is silent as to whether Abrams was to continue treatment after this suit was resolved.
Droxler, Karissa's mother, entered an appearance in the suit against Abrams, and she agreed with Abrams that neither parent should have access to his notes of conversations with Karissa. A hearing was held before the trial court. Abrams testified that a sense of protection and closeness is an integral part of psychotherapy and that without some expectation of confidentiality, Karissa would not have opened up to him. He said that Karissa had several discussions with him about the confidentiality of their sessions. Abrams testified that in his opinion the release to either parent of his detailed notes of what Karissa had said was not in her best interest.
Jones took the position in the trial court that as a parent, he was unconditionally entitled to see all of Abrams's records regarding his daughter. He further represented to the trial court that based on his conversations with Karissa, he was of the opinion that she did not object to the release of her records. Abrams testified, however, that Karissa had asked him not to reveal the details of their conversations, and that during the week before the hearing, her mother delivered a note which Karissa had written to Abrams again asking that he maintain the confidentiality of their discussions.
Abrams's detailed notes about what Karissa had told him during his professional consultations with her were provided to the trial court. The court, however, stated on the record at the conclusion of the hearing that it had not reviewed them and did not intend to. There is no indication that it ever did so.
The trial court held that Jones was entitled to Abrams's notes. Abrams appealed, and Karissa's mother (Droxler) filed briefing in the court of appeals in support of Abrams's position. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment with one justice dissenting. 983 S.W.2d at 377. We granted Abrams's petition for review, which was supported by Karissa's mother.
There are three questions of statutory construction that we must decide. They are (1) whether section 153.073 of the Family Code gives a divorced parent greater rights of access to mental health records than parents in general have under chapter 611 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, (2) whether section 611.0045(b) of the Health and Safety Code allows a professional to deny a parent access to portions of mental health records if the professional concludes that their release would harm the child, and (3) whether a parent is always deemed to be acting on behalf of his or her child when requesting mental health records.
As indicated above, the first question that we must resolve is whether section 153.073 of the Family Code or chapter 611 of the Health and Safety Code governs this matter. Tex. Fam. Code § 153.073; Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 611.001 to 611.008. We conclude that chapter 611 provides the framework within which this case must be decided.
Section 153.073 of the Family Code addresses parental rights upon dissolution of the parents' marriage to one another. It provides that unless a court orders otherwise, a parent who is appointed a conservator "has at all times the right . . . as specified by court order . . . of access to medical, dental, psychological, and educational records of the child." Tex. Fam. Code 153.073(a)(2). Jones contends that this section of the Family Code mandates that a parent who is appointed a conservator has access at all times to all psychological records of the child. We disagree.
We interpret section 153.073 to ensure that a court may grant a parent who is divorced and who has been named a conservator the same rights of access to his or her child's psychological records as a parent who is not divorced. We do not interpret section 153.073 to override the provisions of chapter 611 of the Health and Safety Code that specifically address parents' rights to the mental health records of their children. The legislative history of section 153.073 indicates that it was enacted to equalize the rights of nonmanaging-conservator parents in comparison to managing-conservator parents. See House Comm. on Judicial Affairs, Bill Analysis, Tex. H.B. 1630, 73d Leg., R.S. (1993) (). The Legislature did not intend in section 153.073 to give...
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