TARASOFF V. REGENTS

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So they're gonna be looking at Terosof versus regents. Question
is is there a therapist's duty to protect the third
party from a dangerous patient. The parents of Tatiana Pterosof
sued the University of California and the psychologists for a
student health clinic after a patient in the clinic, Prosagit Pradhar,
murdered Miss Terosof. Mister Pradhar had confided to his psychologist's

(00:22):
intention to kill Miss Tterosof, who was readily identifiable by
mister Perdar's description. While the doctor and clinic did take
some steps to contain the risk that mister p was represented,
such as notifying the campus police, no one directly warned
Miss Terosof. The trial court found that the psychologists cannot
be held directly liable for failing to successfully hospitalize mister Pradhar.

(00:44):
The appeals court agreed, and a further appeal went to
the California Supreme Court. The doctors argue that they did
not necessarily have a duty to someone other than their
identified patient, a dangerousness was too difficult to predict, and
that the nature of psychotherapeutic practice required protection of patient confidentiality.
That Court reversed the Appella decision in nineteen seventy four

(01:07):
and found that therapists have a duty to warn individuals
threatened by parents by patients known as Terrasov. In light
of unusual protest about the decision, including from psychiatrists, the
California Supreme Court agreed to hear the case again in
nineteen seventy six. Beginning its analysis with the common law
assumption and no one owed a duty to control the

(01:27):
conduct of another. The court held that the special relationship
between a psychotherapist and a patient created a duty to
protect others from an identifiably dangerous patient based on the
logic of the foreseeability. The court majority relied heavily on
precedents involving contagious diseases to formulate the notion. When a
therapist determines, or pursuing through the standards of his profession,

(01:50):
should determine that his patient presents a serious danger of
violence to another, a psychotherapist has a duty to exercise
reasonable care and protect the potential victim, including possibly but
not necessarily, directly warning the potential victim. The court disagreed
with Defendant's arguments regarding the potential effects and clinical practice,

(02:11):
and the inability of clinicians to predict violence. As the
Court maintained, the protective privilege ends where the public peril begins.