Several states have established a duty on the part of
psychotherapists to protect the public from harm caused by their dangerous
patients. The Supreme Court of California initially articulated this duty in
the widely discussed Tarasoff case where the court stated:
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. This discharge of this duty may
require the therapist ... to warn the intended victim or others... to notify
police, or to take whatever other steps are reasonably necessary...
Recent cases have sought an appropriate standard by which to
measure this duty, Some courts have adopted a standard which holds that the
duty attaches only when the patient makes specific threats toward identifiable
victims (STIV). The two most recent major decisions, however, have applied the
zone of danger (ZOD) test. According to this standard, the duty applies
whenever the patient poses a foreseeable danger and it extends to all victims
in the zone of danger. These courts have explicitly rejected the STIV standard
on the basis of legal theory and policy analysis. While these two lines of
cases differ in that the former endorses the STIV standard while the latter
applies the ZOD test, they agree insofar as all accept the underlying duty of
therapists to protect the public from their patients.
