Ohio Code 4931.06 – Privileged communications of person with communicative impairment
(A) As used in this section and in sections 2317.02 and 2921.22 of the Revised Code:
Terms Used In Ohio Code 4931.06
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Person: includes an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, and association. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Property: means real and personal property. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
(1) “Communications assistant” means a person who transliterates conversation from text to voice and from voice to text between the end users of a telecommunications relay service provided pursuant to this section or Title II of the “Communications Act of 1934,” 104 Stat. 366 (1990), 47 U.S.C. § 225.
(2) “Communicative impairment” means deafness or speech impairment.
(3) “Deafness” means a hearing loss that prevents a person from being able to understand speech over the telephone.
(4) “Speech impairment” means a speech impairment that renders a person’s speech unintelligible on the telephone.
(5) “Telecommunications relay service” means telephone transmission services that provide the ability for an individual who has a communicative impairment to engage in a communication by wire or radio with a hearing individual in a manner that is functionally equivalent to the ability of an individual who does not have a communicative impairment to communicate using voice communication services by wire or radio. “Telecommunications relay service” includes services that enable two-way communication between an individual who uses a text telephone or other nonvoice terminal device and an individual who does not use such a device.
(B) Any communication made by or to a person with a communicative impairment with the assistance of a communications assistant at a telecommunications relay service is confidential and privileged and shall not be disclosed by the communications assistant in any civil case or proceeding or in any legislative or administrative proceeding, unless the person making the communication and the person to whom the communication is made each waive the privilege of confidentiality or the obligation to divulge the communication is mandated by federal law or regulation or pursuant to subpoena in a criminal proceeding.
(C) A communications assistant or a telecommunications relay service provider is not subject to criminal prosecution and is not liable in damages in any civil action on account of the act of transliterating or the content of any communication transliterated, or any injury, death, or loss to person or property allegedly arising from the act of transliterating or the content of any communication transliterated, between the end users of a telecommunications relay service, except in cases of willful or wanton misconduct.