Opinion
TOBRINER, J.
In this case we must determine the constitutional validity of a judicial discovery order which compels numerous individuals, plaintiffs in the underlying litigation, to disclose extensive and intimate details of both their own and others’ activities in various local political associations. The trial court refused to honor plaintiffs’ request for a protective order to safeguard their associational privacy and instead ordered plaintiffs to render a wholesale revelation of private associational information. Such information ranged from the disclosure of their own membership in numerous associations to a listing of the names of all persons who attended any meeting of such associations, and finally extended to a description of the subjects discussed at all such meetings. Contending that this wide-ranging order infringes upon their constitutional rights, plaintiffs seek an extraordinary writ to restrain the trial court from requiring such revelations.
For the reasons discussed below, we have concluded that the challenged discovery order cannot be sustained. As we explain, for more than two decades decisions of both the United States Supreme Court and this court, recognizing that compelled disclosure of private associational affiliations or activities will inevitably deter many individuals from exercising their constitutional right of association, have established that such intrusion into associational privacy may be sanctioned only upon the demonstration of a very important, indeed “compelling,” state [849]*849interest which necessitates the disclosure. Moreover, the authorities additionally demonstrate that even when such justification is present, the scope of the compelled disclosure must be narrowly circumscribed to avoid undue interference with private associational rights. The extensive discovery authorized in the instant case cannot be reconciled with these settled constitutional precepts.
We have further concluded that a separate portion of the discovery order, which permits defendant to inquire without limit into plaintiffs’ lifetime medical histories, is also vulnerable to plaintiffs’ challenge. As we explain, although in seeking recovery for physical and mental injuries plaintiffs have unquestionably waived their physician-patient and psychotherapist-patient privileges as to all information concerning the medical conditions which they have put in issue, past cases make clear that such waiver extends only to information relating to the medical conditions in question, and does not automatically open all of a plaintiff’s past medical history to scrutiny. Failing to heed the teachings of these governing authorities, the trial court placed absolutely no limit on defendant’s efforts to obtain wholesale disclosure of each plaintiff’s lifetime medical history. Under, these circumstances, we conclude that this aspect of the discovery order should also be vacated.
1. The facts
The facts in this case are not in dispute. Petitioners (hereafter plaintiffs) are 936 owners and residents of homes located near Lindbergh Field, the San Diego International Airport. Real party in interest (hereafter defendant), the San Diego Unified Port District, owns and operates the airport.
On July 29, 1975, and March 29, 1976, in separate actions which were subsequently consolidated, plaintiffs brought suit against the port district seeking compensation for diminution of property values, personal injuries, and emotional disturbance allegedly caused by the noise, vibrations, air pollution, and smoke associated with defendant’s operation of Lindbergh Field as a facility for jet aircraft. Defendant responded by embarking upon a program of extensive discovery. A portion of these extensive discovery efforts gives rise to the issues before us.
In deposing a number of plaintiffs, defendant has attempted to investigate plaintiffs’ local political activities in connection with the operation of Lindbergh Field. Specifically, as plaintiffs assert and [850]*850defendant concedes, defendant has asked plaintiffs questions regarding: (1) plaintiffs’ “membership in various organizations opposed to the . . . way in which the Port District operates its Airport”; (2) any meetings which plaintiffs may have attended “concerning the Airport, including dates, topics and speakers”; (3) any correspondence which plaintiffs received from such organizations; (4) “the identity of other people who attended meetings”; (5) “the content of discussions with others regarding the meetings”; (6) the identity of those persons with whom plaintiffs discussed such matters; and (7) any financial contributions by plaintiffs to such organizations, including the “amount, date, and identity of person requesting funds.”
Defendant also asked plaintiffs to produce, at the taking of their depositions, various documents connected with airport political activity. Specifically, defendant requested plaintiffs to bring: “Any and all writings reflecting communications of any form or nature between yourself, or any member of your family, and the Airport Relocation Committee, CRASH, and/or the Loma Portal Civic Club including, but not limited to: Any flyers, mimeographed sheets, forms, applications for membership, pledges of funds, correspondence, notes of conversations, or cancelled checks reflecting payment of any dues, fees or contributions to any such organization.”
Defendant sought to mount a similarly wide-ranging inquiry into plaintiffs’ medical history. On November 24, 1975, defendant served all 936 plaintiffs with a battery of interrogatories. In addition to requiring plaintiffs to answer detailed questions concerning the physical and mental injuries which defendant’s activities allegedly caused, the interrogatories also demanded of plaintiffs a complete account of their entire medical history, encompassing all illnesses, physical injuries, and mental or emotional disturbances for which plaintiffs sought treatment at any time during their lives.1
[851]*851Several plaintiffs refused to answer defendant’s deposition questions. On March 4, 1976, plaintiffs moved the trial court for a protective order to restrain defendant’s investigations of plaintiffs’ political associations and medical histories. Asserting that their political associations were constitutionally privileged, plaintiffs also challenged the legal propriety of defendant’s unlimited demands for medical information. That same day, defendant moved the trial court for an order compelling plaintiffs to answer its questions. On March 23, 1976, the trial court denied plaintiffs’ motion for a protective order, granted defendant’s motion to compel answers to its deposition questions, and fixed a deadline for plaintiffs’ answers to defendant’s interrogatories.
Plaintiffs thereafter filed the instant petition seeking extraordinary relief. Concluding that the trial court order that compelled the disclosure of extensive information as to the private associational activities of plaintiffs and numerous nonparties raised significant and novel constitutional issues of general importance, we issued an alternative writ. (See, e.g., Oceanside Union School Dist. v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 180, 185-186, fn. 4 [23 Cal.Rptr. 375, 373 P.2d 439]; Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 161, 169, 171 fn. 11 [84 Cal.Rptr. 718, 465 P.2d 854].) In issuing that order, we determined that review by [852]*852extraordinary writ is appropriate in this case (see, e.g., People ex rel. Younger v. County of El Dorado (1971) 5 Cal.3d 480, 492 [96 Cal.Rptr. 553, 487 P.2d 1193]) and thus we turn immediately to the merits of the challenged discovery order.
2. In compelling the wholesale disclosure of private association affiliations and activities, the challenged discovery order works an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights and goes far beyond any limited disclosure that defendant’s legitimate litigation interests may justify.
The discovery order at issue compels plaintiffs to expose to detailed scrutiny information concerning both their own and others’ affiliations with, and activities in, organizations which, at various times, have protested operations at the San Diego airport and have attempted through traditional political efforts to influence the future conduct of such operations. In evaluating the propriety of this order, we recognize at the outset that such peaceful and lawful associational activity is, without question, constitutionally protected activity which, under both our state and federal Constitutions, enjoys special safeguard from governmental interference. (Cal. Const., art. I, §§ 1, 2, 3; U.S. Const., 1st Amend.) Defendant port district does not contest the constitutionally sanctioned nature of such associational activities, but instead argues initially that because the discovery order at issue does not prohibit the exercise of any such activities but merely requires their disclosure, the order is not vulnerable to constitutional attack.
As both the United States Supreme Court and this court have observed time and again, however, First Amendment freedoms, such as the right of ássociation, “are protected not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being stifled by more subtle governmental interference.” (Bates v. Little Rock (1960) 361 U.S. 516, 523 [4 L.Ed.2d 480, 485, 80 S.Ct. 412]; see, e.g., White v. Davis (1975) 13. Cal.3d 757, 767 [120 Cal.Rptr. 94, 533 P.2d 222].) Indeed, numerous cases establish that compelled disclosure of an individual’s private associational affiliations and activities, such as that at issue in the instant case, frequently poses one of the most serious threats to the free exercise of this constitutionally endowed right.
As the United States Supreme Court emphasized nearly 20 years ago in N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama (1958) 357 U.S. 449, 462 [2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1499-1500, 78 S.Ct. 1163], the seminal decision in this field: “It is hardly [853]*853a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute [an] effective . . . restraint on freedom of association . . . This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations. . . . Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.” (See, e.g., Bates v. Little Rock, supra, 361 U.S. 516, 523 [4 L.Ed.2d 480, 485]; Talley v. California (1960) 362 U.S. 60, 64-65 [4 L.Ed.2d 559, 562-563, 80 S.Ct. 536]; Huntley v. Public Util. Com. (1968) 69 Cal.2d 67, 72-73 [69 Cal.Rptr. 605, 442 P.2d 685].)2
Defendant argues, however, that the NAACP decision and its progeny do not apply to the present case. Whereas the NAACP was a largely unpopular organization in Alabama in the late 1950’s whose members were frequently subject to threats and physical violence, defendant emphasizes that plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the organizations in question here are similarly unpopular or that the revelation of their membership will expose individuals to comparable harm. In essence, defendant contends that the constitutional interest in associational privacy upheld in past decisions attaches only to members of dissident [854]*854organizations and does not embrace those who choose to participate in organizations which may enjoy more general popularity.
Although past cases have frequently acknowledged that the “chilling effect” of compelled disclosure most severely affects organizations espousing unorthodox or unpopular views (see, e.g., Watkins v. United States (1957) 354 U.S. 178, 197 [1 L.Ed.2d 1273, 1289-1290, 77 S.Ct. 1173]), the governing authorities do not support defendant’s assertion that constitutional protection of anonymity of affiliation is limited to members of such groups. In Shelton v. Tucker (1960) 364 U.S. 479 [5 L.Ed.2d 231, 81 S.Ct. 247], for example, the United States Supreme Court struck down in its entirety a state statute which required public teachers to disclose all associations to which they had belonged in the past 10 years, drawing no distinction between the statute’s application to “popular” and “unpopular” organizations. (See also Talley v. California, supra, 362 U.S. 60; Baird v. State Bar of Arizona (1971) 401 U.S. 1, 6 [27 L.Ed.2d 639, 646-647, 91 S.Ct. 702].) Moreover, in Gibson v. Florida Legislative Comm. (1963) 372 U.S. 539, 556 [9 L.Ed.2d 929, 941, 83 S.Ct. 889], the Supreme Court specifically refuted defendant’s present contention, declaring that “all legitimate organizations are the beneficiaries of these [privacy of association] protections. . ...” (Italics added.) As Justice Douglas’ concurrence in Gibson reiterated: “\W\hether a group is popular or unpopular, the right of privacy implicit in the First Amendment creates an area into which the Government may not enter.” (Italics added.) (372 U.S. at p. 570 [9 L.Ed.2d at p. 949]: See also Buckley v. Valeo, supra, 424 U.S. 1, 64-68 [46 L.Ed.2d 659, 713-716]; Pollard v. Roberts (E.D.Ark. 1968) 283 F.Supp. 248, 258 (3-judge court), affd. per curiam (1968) 393 U.S. 14 [21 L.Ed.2d 14, 89 S.Ct. 47].)
The facts of the present case demonstrate the propriety of affording constitutional protection to the privacy interests of members of all politically oriented associations. Although the aims of the local associations involved in this case may find general support among San Diego residents, an individual’s participation in such advocatory organizations could nonetheless raise the ire of municipal authorities or other individuals or business entities who have substantial interests in the maintenance or expansion of current airport operations. As the United States Supreme Court explained in Shelton v. Tucker, supra, 364 U.S. 479, 486 [5 L.Ed.2d 231, 236], one of the principal purposes of the constitutional protection of associational privacy is to free an individual to follow the dictates of his conscience by ensuring that he need not “avoid any ties [simply because they] might displease those who control [855]*855his [personal or] professional destiny. . . .” (See Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965) 381 U.S. 301, 307 [14 L.Ed.2d 398, 402, 85 S.Ct. 327]; In re Stolar (1971) 401 U.S. 23, 27-28 [27 L.Ed.2d 657, 662-663, 91 S.Ct. 713].) If the constitutional protection of associational privacy were to be completely withheld from selected organizations simply because they were not sufficiently unpopular, the inevitable effect would be to deter many individuals, particularly those, who may be most vulnerable to retaliation by those opposed to such organizations’ aims, from participating in such constitutionally protected activities. (See, e.g., Pollard v. Roberts, supra, 283 F.Supp. 248, 258.)
Accordingly, we reject defendant’s contention that the “nondissident” nature of the private associations in question immunizes the present discovery order from First Amendment attack. In view of the sweeping scope of the discovery order at issue, we think it clear that such order “is likely to pose a substantial restraint upon the exercise of First Amendment rights....” (White v. Davis, supra, 13 Cal.3d 757, 772.)
Of course, as with all other First Amendment rights, the right of associational privacy is not absolute, and past cases recognize that under some circumstances disclosure may permissibly be compelled. (See, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, supra, 424 U.S. 1, 66-68 [46 L.Ed.2d 659, 714-716].) Because of the constitutional interests at stake, however, the authorities establish that private association affiliations and activities such as those at issue here “are presumptively immune from inquisition. ...” (Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957) 354 U.S. 234, 265-266 [1 L.Ed.2d 1311, 1332-1333, 77 S.Ct. 1203] (Frankfurter, J. conc.)), and thus the government bears the burden of demonstrating the justification for compelling disclosure. (See, e.g., Baird v. State Bar of Arizona, supra, 401 U.S. 1, 6-7 [27 L.Ed.2d 639, 646-647].) Moreover, the cases also make clear that in this context the government’s burden is a particularly heavy one: “[T]o justify any impairment there must be present [a] ‘compelling state interest . . . [which] justifies the substantial infringement of . . . First Amendment rights, it is basic that no showing merely of a rational relationship to some colorable state interest would suffice; in this highly sensitive constitutional area “[o]nly the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation,” [citation].’ ” (Huntley v. Public Util. Com., supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 74; see, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, supra, 424 U.S. 1, 64 [46 L.Ed.2d 659, 713].)
Finally, the decisions establish that not only must disclosure serve a “compelling” state purpose, but that such “purpose cannot be pursued [856]*856by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved.” (Shelton v. Tucker, supra, 364 U.S. 479, 488 [5 L.Ed.2d 231, 237].) As this court explained a decade ago in Vogel v. County of Los Angeles (1967) 68 Cal.2d 18, 22 [64 Cal.Rptr. 409, 434 P.2d 961]: “Even where a compelling state purpose is present, restrictions on the cherished freedom of association . . . must be drawn with narrow specificity. . . . Precision of [compelled disclosure] is required so that the exercise of our most precious freedoms will not be unduly curtailed except to the extent necessitated by the legitimate governmental objective.” (See, e.g., Fort v. Civil Service Commission (1964) 61 Cal.2d 331, 337 [38 Cal.Rptr. 625, 392 P.2d 385]; Pollard v. Roberts, supra, 283 F.Supp. 248, 257; Bursey v. United States (9th Cir. 1972) 466 F.2d 1059, 1083.)
Defendant attempts, on a variety of grounds, to justify the challenged discovery order under these established authorities but, as we shall explain, none of defendant’s contentions sustain the wide-ranging and deep-probing inquiries at issue here.
First, defendant maintains that because the disclosures in the instant case have been compelled pursuant to discoveiy in connection with a private lawsuit, and not in furtherance of any independent governmental inquiiy into private associational activity, the state’s substantial interest in facilitating the ascertainment of truth in such private litigation justifies the present order. Relying upon the general public policy in favor of disclosure in litigation embodied in California’s broad discovery statutes, defendant in essence argues that First Amendment associational privacy interests must invariably give way to any discoveiy effort undertaken in connection with pending litigation.3
[857]*857We recognize, of course, “the historically important state interest of facilitating the ascertainment of truth in connection with legal proceedings” (In re Lifschutz (1970) 2 Cal.3d 415, 432 [85 Cal.Rptr. 829, 467 P.2d 557, 44 A.L.R.3d 1]) and we do not question the significance or legitimacy of the pursuit of this state interest. As we recently observed in a similar context, however, “the identification of [such a] legitimate interest is just the beginning point of analysis . . ., not, as defendant suggests, the conclusion.” (White v. Davis, supra, 13 Cal.3d 757, 766.) “In this realm, as in all others, the permissible limits of governmental action are circumscribed by the federal Bill of Rights and the comparable protections of our state Constitution.” (Id.)
As we have seen, the source of the constitutional protection of associational privacy is the recognition that, as a practical matter, compelled disclosure will often deter such constitutionally protected activities as potently as direct prohibition. This chilling effect on First Amendment rights is not diminished simply because disclosure is compelled pursuant to a litigation-oriented discovery order. Indeed, in some respects, the threat to First Amendment Rights may be more severe in a discovery context, since the party directing the inquiry is a litigation adversary who may well attempt to harass his opponent and gain strategic advantage by probing deeply into areas which an individual may prefer to keep confidential.
Accordingly, the fact that the state-compelled disclosure in this case arises out of a litigation-oriented discovery order does not in itself exempt the order from general First Amendment principles. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court decision in N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, supra, itself establishes this proposition beyond question, for the compelled disclosure invalidated in that case had in fact been embodied in a discovery order issued in connection with a pending lawsuit. (357 U.S. at pp. 453-454 [2 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1494-1495].)
In the instant case, unlike NAACP, however, the discovery order in question requires disclosure by plaintiffs, rather than by a defendant, and the port district contends that this difference justifies the challenged order. The district argues that a party cannot both prosecute a lawsuit and at the same time foreclose discovery of associational activities which may conceivably relate to the litigation. Defendant contends, in effect, that by bringing the instant lawsuit plaintiffs have completely waived their right to associational privacy.
[858]*858We do not deny the efficacy of the district’s general proposition when applied to some situations. In a number of contexts in which evidentiaiy privileges generally provide a cloak of confidentiality, exceptions to such privileges have been recognized as to information that relates to an issue which has been posited by the party claiming the privilege’s protection. Thus, for example, under current California statutes both the physician-patient privilege and the psychotherapist-patient privilege are subject to a “patient-litigant” exception (see Evid. Code, §§ 996, 1016; cf. Evid. Code, §§ 958, 972, subds. (a), (c)) and, in the constitutional realm, the privilege against self-incrimination has been held to be subject to a similar “waiver” exception as to matters which are directly relevant to litigation commenced by the holder of the privilege. (See, e.g., Shepherd v. Superior Court (1976) 17 Cal.3d 107, 117 [130 Cal.Rptr. 257, 550 P.2d 161]; Lyons v. Johnson (9th Cir. 1969) 415 F.2d 540, 542.)
. While these precedents in analogous areas suggest that, to at least some extent, a plaintiff may well waive his right of associational privacy by bringing a lawsuit, this argument for a number of reasons does not justify the extensive discovery sanctioned by the trial court in the instant case.
First, the disclosures compelled by the challenged court order reach far beyond the privacy interests of the plaintiffs in the instant litigation and directly impinge on the constitutional rights of numerous individuals who have taken no action whatsoever with respect to the underlying lawsuit. As we have seen, in addition to the disclosure of plaintiffs’ affiliation and activities in the local anti-airport organizations, the challenged discovery order compels the disclosure of the names of all other persons who have either spoken at, or who have merely attended, any of the various organizations’ numerous meetings. These nonlitigants have clearly not waived their constitutional right of associational anonymity and, consequently, insofar as defendant seeks to justify the challenged order on a waiver theoiy, the challenged order is unquestionably overbroad as applied to such nonlitigants.
Second, even as to the named plaintiffs, the challenged order is likewise impermissibly overbroad. As we have already noted, the “waiver” concept urged by defendant here parallels the waiver principles implicit in the statutoiy “patient-litigant” exception to the California psychotherapist-patient privilege. In In re Lifschutz, supra, 2 Cal.3d 415, a defendant in a personal injury suit claimed, much like the port district, that by commencing the lawsuit the plaintiff had broadly waived any [859]*859right to claim the psychotherapist-patient privilege in connection with the litigation. Explaining that such an expansive rendition of the scope of a plaintiff’s waiver would “effectively deter many psychotherapeutic patients from instituting any general claim for mental suffering and damage out of fear of opening up all past communications to discovery” and “would clearly be an intolerable and overbroad intrusion into the patient’s privacy,” we concluded that the waiver of privilege contemplated by the patient-litigant exception “must be construed not as a complete waiver of the privilege but only as a limited waiver . . . with respect to those mental conditions the patient-litigant has ‘disclosefd] ... by bringing an action in which they are at issue’ . . . .” (Original italics.) (2 Cal.3d at p. 435.)
By parity of reasoning, we conclude that while the filing of a lawsuit may implicitly bring about a partial waiver of one’s constitutional right of associational privacy, the scope of such “waiver” must be narrowly rather than expansively construed, so that plaintiffs will not be unduly deterred from instituting lawsuits by the fear of exposure of their private associational affiliations and activities. (See, e.g., Familias Unidas v. Briscoe (5th Cir. 1976) 544 F.2d 182, 185-186, 192.) When such associational activities are directly relevant to the plaintiff’s claim, and disclosure of the plaintiff’s affiliations is essential to the fair resolution of the lawsuit, a trial court may properly compel such disclosure. (Cf. Carey v. Hume, supra, 492 F.2d 631, 634-639.) Even under such circumstances, however, the general First Amendment principles noted above dictate that the compelled disclosure be narrowly drawn to assure maximum protection of the constitutional interests at stake.
In the instant case, plaintiffs commenced their actions to attempt to recover damages for both personal injuries and the diminution of property values allegedly caused by defendant’s operation of the San Diego airport. From all appearances, plaintiffs’ complaints do not relate to, nor put in issue, any aspect of their private associational conduct. Plaintiffs do not seek recovery for any damage to their associational interests, do not claim that any of these injuries were incurred while pursuing associational activities and do not request any relief with respect to the port district’s relationship with such associations. The success of plaintiffs’ actions will thus turn on questions of proof coriceming the scope and propriety of the airport’s operations and the connection of such operations with the injuries allegedly suffered by plaintiffs; plaintiffs’ constitutionally protected associational activities, even those concerned with protesting airport operations, appear quite [860]*860unrelated to the matters placed at issue by plaintiffs’ complaints. Under these circumstances, we conclude that plaintiffs have not waived the constitutional privacy interests at issue here.
Defendant contends, however, that even if plaintiffs have not waived their First Amendment rights, its inquiry is nonetheless justified under the “compelling interest” standard because plaintiffs’ associational activities may be relevant to several potential defenses upon which defendant may wish to rely: statute of limitations, res judicata and failure to mitigate damages. As we explain in the margin, the relationship of such activities to the suggested defenses is extremely tenuous at best; we seriously doubt that the district has made the requisite showing even to justify the disclosure of presumptively privileged information which directly relates to such defenses. (See N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, supra, 357 U.S. 449, 463-465 [2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1500-1501].)4 In evaluating [861]*861the constitutional propriety of the instant discovery order, however, we need not definitively resolve that question, for even if we assume that the issues raised by defendant might justify an order which compelled plaintiffs to make limited disclosures directed to such issues, the instant order is not so confined.
Instead of carefully delimiting the areas of private associational conduct as to which defendant has demonstrated a compelling need for disclosure, the challenged court order opens virtually all of the associations’ most intimate information to wholesale disclosure, requiring, inter alia, the revelation of the names of all persons who have attended association meetings, the dates and subject matter of all such meetings, and details of the association’s finances and contributions. As already noted, such revelations go far beyond the simple compelled disclosure of organizational affiliations which have routinely been struck down in prior decisions. (E.g., N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, supra; Bates v. Little Rock, supra; Shelton v. Tucker, supra; Gibson v. Florida Investigative Comm., supra; cf. White v. Davis, supra.)
The very breadth of the required disclosure establishes that the trial court in this case did not apply traditional First Amendment analysis in passing on the validity of defendant’s inquiries into the private associational realm, and in particular did not heed the constitutional mandate that “[precision qf [disclosure] is required so that the exercise of our most precious freedoms will not be unduly curtailed. . . .” (Vogel v. County of Los Angeles, supra, 68 Cal.2d 18, 22; see, e.g., Pollard v. [862]*862Roberts, supra, 283 F.Supp. 248, 257-259.) Under these circumstances, we conclude that the challenged discovery order is constitutionally infirm.5
3. The trial court also erred in requiring plaintiffs to make unlimited disclosure of their lifetime medical histories.
As noted at the. outset, in addition to attacking the compelled disclosure of their private associational activities, plaintiffs also challenge a portion of the trial court’s discovery order which compels them to disclose to defendant their entire lifetime medical histories. (See fn. 1, ante.) Plaintiffs stress, in this regard, that while they are completely willing to provide defendant with medical information which relates in any way to the physical or emotional injuries for which they seek recovery in the underlying action—and, indeed, that they have already done so6 —they object to the trial court’s unlimited order which requires them to comply with defendant’s request for information related to all past medical conditions, without regard to whether such conditions have any bearing on the present litigation. The port district argues, in response, that the broad discovery order properly affords it the opportunity to determine for itself whether the injuries, which plaintiffs assert were caused by airport operations, actually arose from other medical conditions.
To assess the validity of plaintiffs’ present claim, we turn first to the relevant statutory provisions. Under sections 990 et seq. and 1010 et seq. of the Evidence Code, a patient enjoys a privilege to refuse to disclose any “confidential communication” between himself and a treating physician or psychotherapist, and sections 992 and 1012 make clear that these privileges extend to at least a significant portion of the medical histories sought to be discovered by defendant.7 Sections 996 and 1016, however, establish an important' exception to the general physician-[863]*863patient and psychotherapist-patient privileges, the “patient-litigant” exception, providing in relevant part that “[tjhere is no privilege ... as to a communication relevant to an issue concerning the condition of the patient if such issue has been tendered by . . . [t]he patient.”8 The resolution of the instant case turns on the proper interpretation of the scope of these statutory exceptions.
As we have already briefly indicated, our court addressed this identical question in In re Lifschutz, supra, 2 Cal.3d 415. The defendant in Lifschutz, like the defendant in the present case, asserted that under the patient-litigant exception as construed in earlier cases, a patient, by instituting a claim for physical or mental injury, automatically waived his statutory privilege as to all protected communications. In Lifschutz, however, we emphatically rejected such a broad rendition of the statutory exception. Noting that such an expansive construction “might effectively deter many . . . patients from instituting [legitimate lawsuits] out of fear of opening up all past communications to discovery,” we concluded that such a “result would clearly be an intolerable and overbroad intrusion into the patient’s privacy, not sufficiently limited to the legitimate state interest embodied in the provision, and would create opportunities for harassment and blackmail.” (2 Cal.3d at p. 435.)
Accordingly, we held in Lifschutz that “the ‘automatic’ waiver of privilege contemplated by [the patient-litigant exception] must be construed not as a complete waiver of the privilege but only as a limited waiver concomitant with the purposes of the exception. Under section 1016 disclosure can be compelled only with respect to those mental conditions the patient-litigant has ‘disclose[d]... by bringing an action in which they are in issue’ [citation]; communications which are not directly [864]*864relevant to those specific conditions do not fall within the terms of section 1016’s exception and therefore remain privileged. Disclosure cannot be compelled with respect to other aspects of the patient-litigant’s personality even though they may, in some sense, be ‘relevant’ to the substantive issues of litigation. The patient thus is not obligated to sacrifice all privacy to seek redress for a specific mental or emotional injury; the scope of the inquiry permitted depends upon the nature of the injuries which the patient-litigant himself has brought before the court.” (Final italics added; remaining italics in original.) (2 Cal.3d at p. 435.) In Roberts v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 330, 337-339 [107 Cal.Rptr. 309, 508 P.2d 309], our court explicitly reaffirmed Lifschutz’s narrow interpretation of the scope of the patient-litigant exception.
Our holdings in Lifschutz and Roberts support plaintiffs’ contention that the discovery order in the instant case is impermissibly overbroad. As Lifschutz explains, plaintiffs are “not obligated to sacrifice all privacy to seek redress for a specific [physical,] mental or emotional injury”; while they may not withhold information which relates to any physical or mental condition which they have put in issue by bringing this lawsuit,9 they are entitled to retain the confidentiality of all unrelated medical or psychotherapeutic treatment they may have undergone in the past. The trial court thus obviously erred in ordering plaintiffs to disclose to defendant their entire lifetime medical histories and this aspect of the challenged discovery order must also be vacated.
4. Conclusion.
Our decision in the present case breaks no new constitutional ground. As we have explained, it has been clear for over two decades that the First Amendment provides substantial protection of an individual’s interest in associational privacy and that it places severe restrictions on state-compelled disclosure of private affiliations and activities. The present decision simply recognizes that these firmly established constitutional precepts cannot be ignored merely because the issue of compelled disclosure arises in the context of litigation discovery; in this realm, as in all others, such disclosure of confidential associational affiliations and [865]*865activities must be justified by a compelling state interest and must be precisely tailored to avoid undue infringement of constitutional rights.
In an age when we must increasingly rely upon government intervention to meet the problems of society, the constitutional protections of the channels of protest become more crucial than ever before. In such a time the unlimited intrusion of governmental agencies into private associational activities must not be permitted to dry up the wholesome sources of dissent.
The wide-ranging discovery sanctioned in the instant case, demonstrates quite unmistakably that the trial court was not sufficiently sensitive to these constitutional concerns. Accordingly, the challenged discovery order cannot stand.
Let a peremptory writ of mandate issue, directing the court (1) to vacate its discovery order with respect to defendant’s inquiries into plaintiffs’ private associational affiliations and activities and plaintiffs’ lifetime medical histories and (2) to proceed in accordance with the views expressed herein.
Bird, C. J., Mosk, J., and Newman, J., concurred.