Court Opinion

ID: 9631251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:33:00.05937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:28:55.638626
License: Public Domain

Justice RIVERA-SOTO,
dissenting.
N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16a specifically provides that “[a]ny person who is licensed ... to practice ... psychiatry ... is immune from *41any civil liability for a patient’s violent act against ... himself unless the practitioner has incurred a duty to warn and protect____” N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16b makes clear that a mental health practitioner incurs a duty to warn and protect only when there is a threat actually communicated by the patient or the reasonable professional belief by the practitioner of “imminent, serious physical violence____” Read together, as they must, these provisions make clear that, unless there is a threat actually communicated by the patient or the reasonable professional belief by the mental health practitioner of “imminent, serious physical violenee[,]” a licensed psychiatrist is “immune from any civil liability for a patient’s violent act against [himself.]”
Although the majority agrees with the trial court’s conclusion that the defendant psychiatrist did not incur a duty to warn and protect, ante, 188 N.J. at 40, 902 A.2d at 888 (2006), the majority nonetheless concludes that “the statutory immunity provisions of N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16 do not immunize a mental health practitioner from potential liability if the practitioner abandons a seriously depressed patient and fails to treat the patient in accordance with accepted standards of care in the field.” Ante, 188 N.J. at 38, 902 A.2d at 881-82 (2006). According to the majority, that conclusion is compelled because “[a mental health] practitioner’s common-law duty to exercise that degree of care, knowledge, and skill for his or her patient that would be followed by any reasonable member of the profession under like circumstances exists separate and apart from any duty to warn and protect pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16.” Ante, 188 N.J. at 38, 902 A.2d at 882 (2006). The majority, therefore, reasons that, “even if a practitioner does not incur a duty to warn and protect under the statute, he or she may still be liable for a breach of his or her duty to treat a patient in accordance with applicable professional standards.” Ante, 188 N.J. at 39, 902 A.2d at 882 (2006).
For the reasons so ably expressed by Judge Fuentes in his dissent in the Appellate Division, Marshall v. Klebanov, 378 N.J.Super. 371, 381, 875 A.2d 1035 (App.Div.2005) (Fuentes, J., *42dissenting), I cannot agree with the majority’s interpretation of this statute. As rightly noted by Judge Fuentes, “the statute immunizes a mental healthcare practitioner from ‘any civil liability1 for a patient’s self-injurious acts, unless he or she has incurred a ‘duty to warn and protect[.]’ ” Ibid. Analytically, the statute is quite clear. The basic statutory standard is that a mental health practitioner is immune from any civil liability from a patient’s self-inflicted acts. N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16a. An exception to that immunity arises if and only if the practitioner has incurred a new, statutorily-created duty to warn and protect. Ibid. The duty to warn and protect arises only in the context of communicated or perceived “imminent, serious physical violence” against the patient himself or against another. N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16b. Once that duty arises, however, the mental health practitioner can discharge the duty by (1) voluntarily admitting the patient, (2) involuntarily committing the patient, (3) advising local law enforcement of the threat of harm and the intended victim, (4) warning the intended victim of the threat, or (5) warning the parents of a minor patient of the threat. N.J.S.A. 2A:62A-16c.
The application of the legislative construct to this case is simple and direct. Because the majority agrees that defendant did not incur a duty to “warn and protect,” the mandated conclusion is self-evident from the plain language of the statute: the mental health practitioner “is immune from any civil liability for a patient’s violent act against ... himself____” Any different construction of this statute renders meaningless an otherwise lawful act of the Legislature.
The Legislature made the equation clear: no duty to warn and protect equals immunity from any civil liability. Insofar as the majority agrees that defendant was under no duty to warn and protect plaintiffs decedent, the majority similarly should honor the Legislature’s clearly stated view that the inquiry is at an end and no liability can be imposed on defendant. Because I cannot ignore the Legislature’s clearly expressed will, I respectfully dissent.
*43For affirmance as modified/remandment — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, and WALLACE — 5.
For reversal — Justices RIVERA-SOTO — 1.