PRIVILEGED

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

← Dictionary
PRIVILEGEDAuthored
The Law Mind • 1305 words
Definition
As an adjective in legal usage, "privileged" describes a communication, relationship, document, or person that is protected from compelled disclosure or legal liability by operation of a recognized privilege. The term operates across two principal contexts: 1. PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION: A statement, writing, or exchange that the law shields from compelled disclosure — most commonly in the context of the attorney-client relationship, but also covering spousal communications, physician-patient communications, clergy-penitent exchanges, and in some jurisdictions psychotherapist-patient communications. A communication is privileged when it was made within a protected relationship and with a reasonable expectation of confidentiality. The holder of the privilege (usually the client, patient, or penitent) can prevent the other party to the communication from testifying about it in legal proceedings. 2. PRIVILEGED STATEMENT (DEFAMATION CONTEXT): A statement that, even if false and injurious to reputation, does not expose the speaker to liability for defamation because it was made in a legally protected context. Courts and commentators have long divided this category into absolute and qualified (conditional) privilege. An absolutely privileged statement — such as one made during legislative debate or judicial proceedings — is immune from defamation liability regardless of the speaker's motive or knowledge of falsity. A qualifiedly privileged statement — such as a reference letter or a report made to a proper authority — is protected only when made without actual malice and within the scope of the occasion giving rise to the privilege. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The word appears primarily as the simple past and past participle of the verb "to privilege," meaning to grant or confer a special advantage or immunity. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Invested with a privilege; enjoying a peculiar right, advantage, or immunity." Webster's illustrates the legal sense directly, citing privileged communication as a communication that cannot be disclosed without consent, and separately, a communication that does not expose the maker to indictment for libel. The ordinary sense of "privileged" — meaning simply favored, advantaged, or specially positioned — covers only the surface of the legal meaning. In law, the word describes a formal, rule-governed immunity that attaches to defined relationships or occasions, not merely to persons of elevated status. A researcher encountering "privileged" in a historical source must determine which legal category is invoked: evidentiary non-disclosure or defamation immunity. The two are analytically separate and governed by different bodies of law. ---
Common Confusion
"Privileged" is sometimes conflated with "confidential." Confidentiality is a professional or contractual duty not to disclose; privilege is an evidentiary rule that prevents compelled disclosure in legal proceedings. A communication can be confidential without being privileged, and the distinction matters acutely when a party seeks documents through discovery. Similarly, "absolutely privileged" in the defamation context is sometimes confused with "privileged" in the evidentiary sense — the terminology overlaps but the doctrines are entirely distinct. ---
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE (DEFAMATION): Complete immunity regardless of motive. Applies classically to statements made in legislative proceedings, judicial proceedings, and communications between certain executive officers acting in official capacity. QUALIFIED (CONDITIONAL) PRIVILEGE (DEFAMATION): Protects statements made on an occasion where the speaker has a legal, moral, or social duty to communicate and the recipient has a corresponding interest in receiving the information. Lost if the statement is made with actual malice or outside the scope of the privileged occasion. Historical sources include fair criticism of literary publications and works of art within this category. EVIDENTIARY PRIVILEGE — ABSOLUTE: Certain privileges, such as the state secrets privilege, operate as a near-absolute bar to disclosure regardless of balancing. EVIDENTIARY PRIVILEGE — QUALIFIED: Some privileges yield when a compelling need for the information is demonstrated, or are subject to exceptions (the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege being the most prominent). ---
Why It Matters in Research
Corpus researchers will encounter "privileged" in two entirely separate streams of legal literature — evidence and procedure on one side, and defamation and torts on the other — and the same word doing very different work in each. Historical sources often treat both under a single heading without clearly separating them, which can obscure the applicable doctrine. The defamation privilege taxonomy in historical sources is inconsistent. Rapalje & Lawrence uses the absolute/qualified distinction and situates parliamentary privilege, professional privilege (barristers, solicitors, medical practitioners, clergy), and fair criticism as distinct categories within the broader structure. Earlier American sources may use "conditionally privileged" instead of "qualifiedly privileged." When reading nineteenth-century tort treatises, note that the boundaries of the qualified privilege were actively contested — particularly regarding communications between private parties and reports to employers or professional associations. On the evidentiary side, the scope of recognized privileges expanded significantly in American law during the twentieth century. Historical dictionaries naturally omit the psychotherapist-patient privilege (first recognized by the Supreme Court in Jaffee v. Redmond, 1996) and often treat the physician-patient privilege inconsistently, as it was not uniformly recognized at common law and developed primarily through statute. Researchers working in evidence contexts should treat historical dictionary treatments of privileged communications as a floor, not a ceiling, of current doctrine. Jurisdictional variation is especially acute in the evidentiary privilege context. The Federal Rules of Evidence deferred entirely to common law development rather than codifying specific privileges, while many states enacted detailed statutory privilege schemes. A communication that is privileged in one jurisdiction may not be in another. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) does not provide a standalone entry for "privileged" in the surviving excerpted text, but the associated case citations — drawn from multiple state jurisdictions — indicate that the term appeared primarily in the context of qualified privilege in defamation, where the boundaries of the protection were regularly litigated. The citation pattern suggests that by the early twentieth century, "privileged" in the tort context was understood to require fact-specific analysis of the occasion and the speaker's purpose, not merely the subject matter of the statement. Rapalje & Lawrence addresses the defamation dimension explicitly, citing the absolute/qualified distinction and identifying a range of professional relationships — members of parliament, barristers, solicitors, attorneys, clergy, medical practitioners — as giving rise to privileges protecting communications from disclosure or from defamation liability. The pairing of evidentiary privilege (exempting attorneys and physicians from giving evidence) with defamation privilege in the same entry reflects the historical tendency to treat "privilege" as a unifying concept across both evidence and tort, a practice that modern legal analysis has largely abandoned in favor of doctrinal separation. Webster's 1913 is notable for capturing both meanings — non-disclosure and defamation immunity — within a single definition of "privileged communication," reflecting the state of legal vocabulary at the time. The conflation was common in lay and semi-technical sources well into the twentieth century. ---
Jurisdictional Note
American federal courts recognize privileges under a common law framework developed case by case; state courts often apply statutory privilege schemes that vary significantly in scope and recognized relationships. The attorney-client privilege and the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination are the most uniformly recognized; the physician-patient and accountant-client privileges are creatures of statute in most jurisdictions and do not exist at federal common law. Researchers should not assume that a privilege recognized in one state's cases or statutes applies in federal proceedings or other states. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
civpro_160: Spousal Privileges — Testimonial Privilege and Marital Communications civpro_161: Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege — Jaffee v. Redmond civpro_162: Clergy-Penitent and Other Recognized Privileges — All in The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia ---
Related Terms
PRIVILEGE (parent concept) ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE WORK PRODUCT DOCTRINE ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE CONFIDENTIALITY DEFAMATION LIBEL COMPELLED DISCLOSURE WAIVER (of privilege) CRIME-FRAUD EXCEPTION SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE TESTIMONIAL PRIVILEGE
PRIVILEGEDmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
sey v. Cheek, 109 N. C. 270, 13 S. EB. 775; Nichols v. Eaton, 110 Iowa, 509, 81 N. W. 792, 47 L. R.. A. 483, 80 Am. St. Rep. 319; Knapp & Co. v. Campbell, 14 Tex. Civ. App. 199, 36 S. W. 765; Hill v. Drainage Co., 79 Hun, 335, 20 N. ¥. Supp. 427; Cooley v. Galyon, 109 Tenn. 1, 70 S. W. 607, 60 L. R. A. 139, 97 Am. St. Rep. 823; Ruohs v. Backer, 6 Heisk. (Tenn.) 405, 19 Am. Rep. 598; Cranfill v. Hayden, 97 Tex. 544, 80 S. W. 613. In parliamentary law. The right of a particular question, motion, or statement to take precedence over all other business before the house and to be considered immediately, notwithstanding any consequent interference with or setting aside the rules of procedure adopted by the house. The. niatter may be one of “personal privilege,” where it concerns one member of the house in his capacity as a legislator, or of the “privilege of the house,” where it concerns the rights, immunities, or dignity of the entire body, or of “constitutional privilege,” where it relates to some action to be taken or some order of proceeding expressly enjoined by the constitution. . —Privilege from arrest. A privilege extended to certain classes of persons, either by the rules of international law, the policy of the law, or the necessities of justice or of the administration of government, whereby they are exempted from arrest on civil process, and, in some cases, on criminal charges, either permanently. as in the case of a foreign minister and his suite, or temporarily, as in the case of members of the legislature, parties and witnesses. engaged in a particular suit, etc.—Privilege tax. A tax on the privilege of carrying on a business for which a license or franchise is uired. Adams v. Colonial Mortgage Co., 82 Miss. 263, 34 South. 482, 100 Am. St. Re 633: Gulf & Ship Island R. Co. v. Hewes, 1 U. 8. 66, 22 Sup. Ct. 26, 46 L. Ed. 86; St Louis v. Western Union Tel. Co., 148 U. S. 92, 13 Sup. Ct. 485, 37 L. Ed. 380.—Real privflege. In English law. A privilege granted to, or concerning. a particular place or locality. —Special privilege. In constitutional law. A right, power, franchise, immunity, or privilege granted to, or vested in, a person or class of persons, to the exclusion of others, and in derogation of common right. See City of Elk Point v. Vaughn, 1 Dak. 118, 46 N. W. 577: .Ex parte Douglass, 1 Utah, 111.—Writ of telah A process to enforce or maintain ege; particularly to secure the release of a person arrested in a civil suit contrary to his privilege. Possessing or enjoying a privilege; exempt from burdens; entitled to priority or precedence. —Privileged communications. See ComMUNICATION.—Privileged copyholds. See CopYrHOLD.—Privileged debts. Those which an executor or administrator may pay in preference to others; such as funeral expenses, servants’ wages. and doctors’ bills during last sickness, etc.—Privileged deed. In tch law. An instrument, for example, a testament, in the execution of which certain statutory formalities usually required are dispensed with, either from necessity or expediency. Ersk. Inst. 3, 2, 22; Bell—Privileged villenage. In old lish law. A species of villenage in which the tenants held by certain and determinate services; otherwise called “viilein-soc-
PRIVILEGEDmain
Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883
Milissich v. Lloyd's, Week. N. (1877) 36; Webb v. East, 5 Ex. D. 108,) and fair criticisms on literary publications and works of art. (Underh. Torts 97.) The privilege is said to be absolute where the intenmembers of parliament, ministers, barristers, solicitors, attorneys, clergymen, medical practitioners, &c.; the privileges exempting attorneys and physicians from giving discovery or evidence of matters communicated to them by their clients tion of the speaker or writer is immaterial, and patients in professional confidence, (as in the case of judges, members of par- &c. Dan. Ch. Pr. 488. See CONFIDENTIAL liament, &c.,) or qualified, when it does
PRIVILEGEDa.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
Invested with a privilege; enjoying a peculiar right, advantage, or immunity. Privileged communication. (Law) (a) A communication which can not be disclosed without the consent of the party making it, -- such as those made by a client to his legal adviser, or by persons to their religious or medical advisers. (b) A communication which does not expose the party making it to indictment for libel, -- such as those made by persons communicating confidentially with a government, persons consulted confidentially as to the character of servants, etc. -- Privileged debts (Law), those to which a preference in payment is given out of the estate of a deceased person, or out of the estate of an insolvent. Wharton. Burrill. -- Privileged witnesses (Law) witnesses who are not obliged to testify as to certain things, as lawyers in relation to their dealings with their clients, and officers of state as to state secrets; also, by statute, clergymen and physicans are placed in the same category, so far as concerns information received by them professionally.
privilegedverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
simple past and past participle of privilege
privilegedadj
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Having special privileges. | Not subject to legal discovery due to a protected status.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

SubscribeEncyclopediaSign In
The Law Mind Legal Dictionary. This is a legal research library, not a lawyer.
Dictionary • Encyclopedia • Sign In