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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (58188)	4/18/2007 11:38:36 PM
From: mph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

It's very tricky to deal with mental health issues. In CA, there's an old case called Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, (1976) 17 Cal.3d 425 Here's a snippet from the case: On October 27, 1969, Prosenjit Poddar killed Tatiana Tarasoff. fn. 1 Plaintiffs, Tatiana's parents, allege that two months earlier Poddar confided his intention to kill Tatiana to Dr. Lawrence Moore, a psychologist employed by the Cowell Memorial Hospital at the University of California at Berkeley. They allege that on Moore's request, the campus police briefly detained Poddar, but released him when he appeared rational. They further claim that Dr. Harvey Powelson, Moore's superior, then directed that no further action be taken to detain Poddar. No one warned plaintiffs of Tatiana's peril. Concluding that these facts set forth causes of action against neither therapists and policemen involved, nor against the Regents of the University of California as their employer, the superior court sustained defendants' demurrers to plaintiffs' second amended complaints without leave to amend. fn. 2 This appeal ensued. [17 Cal.3d 431] Plaintiffs' complaints predicate liability on two grounds: defendants' failure to warn plaintiffs of the impending danger and their failure to bring about Poddar's confinement pursuant to the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5000 ff.) Defendants, in turn, assert that they owed no duty of reasonable care to Tatiana and that they are immune from suit under the California Tort Claims Act of 1963 (Gov. Code, § 810 ff.). We shall explain that defendant therapists cannot escape liability merely because Tatiana herself was not their patient. [1] 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. __________________________________________ You can read the rest on findlaw.com There are many post-Tarasoff decisions, but basically there must be an identifiable threat to particular individuals. I don't know whether Cho articulated specific threats against specific people as I haven't had a chance to catch up on the details. On today's campuses--as well as other places, like the workplace--there is a tension between ADA issues, privacy issues and safety issues. Inadequate handling of that tension and the competing considerations it engenders was illustrated by the Cho story, imo. Earlier MD was wondering about the school's concern over lawsuits stemming from Cho's ethnic status. I never thought that had any thing to do with it. The problem they had was whether to try and ban him from school, which would have prompted ADA or even civil rights litigation or whether they wanted to give lip service to attempts to help him which they could point to if anything bad happened. I think they chose the latter course, thinking that the bad would be suicide. They didn't anticipate mass murder. Between the inept way they handled notification yesterday and all the clues coming out today, that school is gong to pay big time in wrongful death and injury suits over this killing spree. Mark my words. In addition to the families of the dead and those injured, there will be a plethora of post traumatic stress and related syndrome claims. This is going to be more expensive than defending one lwsuit brought on behalf of a disturbed individual.