Opinion ID: 2275966
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Tarasoff and its Progeny

Text: We begin our analysis with the California Supreme Court's landmark decision in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334 (1976), the first case to hold that a mental health professional may be burdened with an affirmative duty to protect a person from the actions of a violent patient. During the summer of 1969, Prosenjit Poddar, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkley, sought voluntary outpatient therapy at the university hospital after he became severely depressed. Id. at 341. During the course of treatment, Poddar told his psychologist that he planned to kill a young woman when she returned home from Brazil; the woman was unnamed, but nonetheless readily identifiable to the therapist as Tatiana Tarasoff. Id. After the therapist conferred with two colleagues, he determined that Poddar should be committed to a mental hospital for observation. Id. He then notified the campus police and requested their assistance in confining Poddar. Id. The police detained Poddar, but they released him after they determined that he was rational and after they secured a promise from him that he would stay away from Tatiana. Id. The therapist's supervisor then directed that no further action be taken to confine or otherwise detain Poddar. Id. Neither Tatiana nor her parents were ever warned of Poddar's homicidal ideation. Id. at 340. Tragically, two months later, after Tatiana returned to the United States, Poddar followed through with his threat and he murdered her. Id. at 339, 341. Tatiana's parents filed suit against the University of California, the therapists who treated Poddar, and the campus police. Tarasoff, 551 P.2d at 340 n. 2. They argued that the therapists and police acted negligently in failing to secure Poddar's confinement, and in failing to warn Tatiana, or others likely to alert her of the danger she faced. Id. at 341. The court held that: When a therapist determines, or pursuant to the standards of his profession should determine, that his patient presents a serious danger of violence to another, he incurs an obligation to use reasonable care to protect the intended victim against such danger. The discharge of this duty may require the therapist to take one or more of various steps, depending upon the nature of the case. Thus it may call for him to warn the intended victim or others likely to apprise the victim of the danger, to notify the police, or to take whatever other steps are reasonably necessary under the circumstances. Tarasoff, 551 P.2d at 340. In the more than thirty years since this seminal decision, Tarasoff -type duties have been widely accepted throughout the country and imposed through either the common law or by statute. [10] There have been a variety of different approaches; some courts treated both warning a potential victim and controlling a dangerous patient as options under a duty to protect, while other courts have reasoned that warning victims and controlling patients are separate duties, each with different requirements that trigger the respective duty. Compare Lipari v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 497 F.Supp. 185, 193-94 (D.Neb. 1980) (holding that duty to protect requires a therapist to initiate whatever precautions are reasonably necessary, which may include warning potential victims or committing a patient to a facility under appropriate circumstances) with Emerich v. Philadelphia Center for Human Development, Inc., 554 Pa. 209, 720 A.2d 1032, 1043, 1044 n. 13 (1998) (holding that duty to warn exists under very limited circumstances, but not addressing any separate duty to commit a patient to inpatient treatment). Typically, when courts recognize a duty to warn, they require a threat directed toward a specific or readily identifiable victim. See Thompson v. County of Alameda, 27 Cal.3d 741, 167 Cal.Rptr. 70, 614 P.2d 728, 738 (1980); Emerich, 720 A.2d at 1043. When the duty is to control, and not to warn a specific person, courts generally require the existence of a special relationship, where the defendant: (1) knew or should have known that the patient posed a serious risk of violence to others; and (2) had the legal right and ability to control the patient. See Abernathy v. United States, 773 F.2d 184, 189 (8th Cir.1985); Hinkelman v. Borgess Medical Center, 157 Mich.App. 314, 403 N.W.2d 547, 551-52 (1987). Many of these cases turn on whether a patient has been admitted to a facility, thus enhancing the ability to control the patient. See Bradley Center, Inc. v. Wessner, 250 Ga. 199, 296 S.E.2d 693, 695-97 (1982). Other courts, as discussed below, however, suggest that mental health providers may have a duty to exercise control by seeking commitment when appropriate, even in the case of an outpatient.