When an insurer or a defendant requests a medical examination of a civil party who does not speak English proficiently, and the examination is for the purpose of determining damages, California requires an interpreter to be present. The requesting side pays. If the examination proceeds without one, the record of it and testimony about it are inadmissible.
That is Evidence Code section 755.5, and it is remarkable how rarely it appears in the material written for the people it affects. It sits in the Evidence Code rather than in the discovery statutes, which is probably why it goes unnoticed. The consequences it carries are more severe than anything in the interpreter provisions that get discussed constantly.
What subdivision (a) actually requires
Subdivision (a) applies during any medical examination, requested by an insurer or by the defendant, of a person who is a party to a civil action and who does not proficiently speak or understand the English language, conducted for the purpose of determining damages in a civil action. In those circumstances an interpreter shall be present to interpret the examination in a language the person understands.
Four elements have to line up, and it is worth checking each rather than assuming:
- A medical examination. The statute is not limited to a particular label, so the defense medical examination, the independent medical examination, and equivalent examinations arranged by a carrier all sit within the description where the other elements are met.
- Requested by an insurer or by the defendant. A treating appointment the plaintiff arranges is a different situation.
- Of a person who is a party to the civil action and who does not proficiently speak or understand English. The examinee has to be a party, not any witness.
- Conducted for the purpose of determining damages in a civil action.
The statute was amended by Stats. 1995, ch. 938, section 8, effective January 1, 1996 and operative July 1, 1997. It has been on the books for a long time.
The payer rule
Subdivision (b) is one sentence and it removes an argument before it starts: the fees of interpreters used under subdivision (a) are paid by the insurer or defendant requesting the medical examination. There is no apportionment mechanism, no reservation to the court, and no provision making it a cost of the examinee. The party who wants the examination pays for the interpreter who makes it possible.
That is a different allocation from the one that governs deposition interpreters, where the noticing party ordinarily pays by convention and the fee may later be recoverable as a cost by the prevailing party. The distinction is worth holding onto, because the two situations are often handled by the same scheduler on the same day. Our article on who pays for a deposition interpreter covers that side.
The sanction, and why it is the part to remember
Subdivision (c) provides that the record of, or testimony concerning, any medical examination conducted in violation of subdivision (a) is inadmissible in the civil action for which it was conducted, and in any other civil action. That is an exclusionary consequence attaching to the examination itself.
Consider what that means operationally. A defense medical examination represents a scheduled specialist, a report, and often the evidentiary backbone of a damages defence. Conducting it without a required interpreter puts all of it at risk, and the second clause means the problem does not go away by using the report somewhere else. Set against that, the cost of an interpreter is trivial. This is the rare provision where the compliance step is cheap and the failure mode is severe.
Subdivision (d) is a small but useful clarification: the section does not prohibit the presence of any other person to assist a party. A support person in the room is not the same thing as the interpreter the statute requires, and their presence does not cure a missing interpreter.
The credential question, which is not where most people look
This is the detail that separates a well-run examination from an exposed one, and almost no commercial content covers it. Subdivision (e) addresses what happens when a certified interpreter cannot attend, and in doing so it tells you which certification the statute has in mind. It refers to interpreters certified pursuant to Article 8 commencing with Section 11435.05 of the Government Code, and provides that where such interpreters cannot be present at the medical examination, upon stipulation of the parties the requesting party has discretionary authority to provisionally qualify and use other interpreters.
Government Code section 11435.05 and following is not the Judicial Council court interpreter program. It is the administrative language assistance article, and section 11435.35 addresses certification of medical examination interpreters, with the State Personnel Board maintaining a list and the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers Compensation permitted to establish an alternative list through independent testing organizations. Court interpreters certified under Government Code section 68562 are deemed certified for this purpose, so a Judicial Council certified interpreter is not excluded. But the statute's reference point for a medical examination is the administrative list, not the court list.
Two practical consequences follow. First, do not assume the credential you would book for a deposition is automatically the credential this statute contemplates, even though a court-certified interpreter qualifies. Second, subdivision (e) requires a stipulation of the parties before the requesting side provisionally qualifies someone else. It is not a unilateral fallback. If the language is scarce and no certified interpreter is available, that is a conversation to have with opposing counsel in advance and in writing, not a decision to make in the waiting room.
How this plays out in practice
The failure mode is almost never a deliberate decision to skip the interpreter. It is a scheduling gap: the examination is set weeks out, the language need is recorded somewhere in the file, and nobody converts it into a booking until the day arrives. A short checklist prevents it:
- Record the examinee's language and variety at the point the examination is noticed, not later.
- Book the interpreter at the same time as the examination slot, since specialist availability and interpreter availability are separate constraints.
- Confirm the interpreter's credential in writing, and confirm it is appropriate for a medical examination rather than assuming a general qualification.
- Where the language is scarce, raise provisional qualification with opposing counsel early enough to obtain a stipulation, because subdivision (e) requires one.
- Confirm the interpreter has medical subject-matter experience. Nothing in the statute requires it, but an examination that turns on symptom description and functional limitation is not a good place for a generalist.
- Note the interpreter's presence in the examination record.
Our guidance on hiring a medical interpreter covers the subject-matter question in more detail, and AMS staffs psychological and neuropsychological evaluations, which raise the same issues over a longer examination format.
When proficiency itself is disputed
Subdivision (a) turns on whether the examinee proficiently speaks or understands English. That is occasionally contested, usually where an examinee has conversational English but not the vocabulary an examination actually demands. It is worth being clear about what the examination requires. A person can order lunch, hold a job, and follow a conversation in a second language while being unable to describe referred pain, distinguish numbness from weakness, or understand a question about functional limitation over time.
Practically, the safe course is asymmetric in one direction. Providing an interpreter where one turns out not to have been strictly required costs an interpreter fee. Omitting one where it was required risks the examination under subdivision (c). Where there is a genuine question, the sensible response is to book the interpreter and record the basis for the language need, not to litigate proficiency in advance of an examination that is scheduled to happen.
The same logic applies to the choice of language variety. An examinee whose first language is an indigenous Mesoamerican language may have partial Spanish, and interpreting the examination in Spanish because Spanish is easier to source produces exactly the accuracy problem the statute exists to prevent. Our article on indigenous Mesoamerican languages in U.S. courts covers that pattern in detail.
The workers compensation track is separate
Section 755.5 governs civil damages matters. California workers compensation medical-legal examinations run under their own regulations, with their own credential and fee provisions, and the two should not be treated as interchangeable authority. Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations, section 9795.3, sets the fee framework there, including a rate for medical appointments and medical-legal examinations of $11.25 per quarter hour or portion thereof with a minimum payment of two hours, or the market rate, whichever is greater.
Note also the credential overlap that runs the other way. Government Code section 11435.35 permits the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers Compensation to establish a certification list through independent testing organizations, which is why medical interpreter credentials appear in that setting alongside the State Personnel Board list. Our comparison of medical interpreter certifications covers those credentials, and AMS staffs workers compensation matters separately from civil damages examinations.
A note on scope
Section 755.5 is specific. It addresses insurer-requested or defendant-requested medical examinations of a party in a civil damages matter. It is not a general rule that every medical appointment requires a certified interpreter, and it does not govern workers compensation medical-legal examinations, which run on their own regulatory track with its own credential and fee provisions. Treating one as authority for the other is a common error and an avoidable one.
Sources
California Evidence Code section 755.5 and California Government Code sections 11435.05, 11435.35, and 68562, available through California Legislative Information; Stats. 1995, ch. 938, section 8. Verified against the primary sources in July 2026. This article describes statutory provisions and is not legal advice for a specific matter.
AMS supplies interpreters for defense and insurer-requested medical examinations across California, matched to medical subject-matter experience. See our medical interpreting service or our work with insurance defense counsel and carriers.