Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California

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Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14 (Cal. 1976), was a case in which the Supreme Court of California held that mental health professionals have a duty to protect individuals who are being threatened with bodily harm by a patient. The original 1974 decision mandated warning the threatened individual, but a 1976 rehearing of the case by the California Supreme Court called for a "duty to protect" the intended victim. The professional may discharge the duty in several ways, including notifying police, warning the intended victim, and/or taking other reasonable steps to protect the threatened individual.

1 Facts
2 Opinion of the Court
3 Subsequent Developments
4 External links

[edit] Facts

Prosenjit Poddar was a patient of Dr. Lawrence Moore, a psychologist at UC Berkeley's Cowell Memorial Hospital in 1969. Poddar confided his intent to kill Tatiana Tarasoff, a girl who had bluntly rejected Poddar's obsessive romantic advances. Dr. Moore requested that the campus police detain Poddar, who was shortly thereafter released, as he appeared rational. Dr. Moore's supervisor, Dr. Harvey Powelson, then ordered that Poddar not be subject to further detention.

Neither Tatiana nor her parents received any warning of the threat. Several months later, on October 27, 1969, Poddar carried out his desire, killing Tarasoff. Tarasoff's parents then sued Moore and various other employees of the University.

[edit] Opinion of the Court

The California Supreme Court found that a mental health professional has a duty not only to a patient, but also to individuals who are specifically being threatened by a patient. This decision has since been adopted by most states in the U.S. and is widely influential in jurisdictions outside the U.S. as well.

In the majority opinion, Justice Mathew O. Tobriner famously stated: "... the confidential character of patient-psychotherapist communications must yield to the extent that disclosure is essential to avert danger to others. The protective privilege ends where the public peril begins."

Justice Clark dissented, stating in his minority opinion that "the very practice of psychiatry depends upon the reputation in the community that the psychiatrist will not tell".

[edit] Subsequent Developments

People of the State of New York v. Robert Bierenbaum was a landmark murder case, setting precedent on upholding Physician-patient privilege even when a Tarasoff warning is invoked: "Neither a psychiatrist issuing a Tarasoff warning nor a patient telling his friends he's in treatment constitutes a waiver of a patient's psychiatrist-patient privilege."^[1]^[2]