§ 104340 — California Health and Safety Code

(a) Statements, writings, or benevolent gestures expressing sympathy, regret, a general sense of benevolence, or suggesting, reflecting, or accepting fault relating to the pain, suffering, or death of a person, or to an adverse patient safety event or unexpected health care outcome, in relation to an act or omission to act in the provision of or failure to provide health care, and made to that person or the family or representative of that person prior to the filing of a lawsuit or demand for arbitration, shall be confidential, privileged, protected, not subject to subpoena, discovery, or disclosure, and shall not be used or admitted into evidence in any civil, administrative, regulatory, licensing, or disciplinary board, agency, or body action or proceeding, and shall not be used or admitted in relation to any sanction, penalty, or other liability, as evidence of an admission of liability or for any other purpose, and all such communications, whether verbal, electronic, in writing, or in any other form, shall also be entitled to the privileges and protections set forth in Sections 1119, 1152, 1157, and 1160 of the Evidence Code.

(b) For purposes of this section:

(1) “Adverse patient safety event or unexpected health care outcome” means any event or condition identified in Section 2216.3 of the Business and Professions Code, Section 1279.1, and any act or omission to act by a health care provider in the rendering of professional services resulting in, alleged to have resulted in, or with the potential to result in injury or death to one or more persons and that is not the result of knowingly or purposefully harmful action.

(2) “Benevolent gestures” means any action that conveys a sense of compassion or commiseration emanating from humane impulses.

(3) “Family” means the spouse, domestic partner, parent, grandparent, stepparent, child, guardian, stepchild, grandchild, sibling, half-sibling, adopted children of a parent, a spouse’s parent, and in-laws of an injured party.

(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 17, Sec. 5. (AB 35) Effective January 1, 2023.)