Attorney's Duty to Protect Personal Information

The duty to protect.

Privilege and confidentiality are central to the physician–patient relationship. These concepts are protected by law in almost all jurisdictions (1,2). Breaches of confidentiality have long been considered unethical and, in many situations, actionable. In this regard, physicians have been governed by their standards of practice, by the regulations of their professional colleges, and in many jur...

A maternal duty to protect fetal health?

No duty to warn in California: now unambiguously solely a duty to protect.

In 2013, legislation went into effect clarifying that the Tarasoff duty in California is now unambiguously solely a duty to protect. Warning the potential victim and the police is not a requirement, but a clinician can obtain immunity from liability by using this safe harbor. In situations in which a therapist believes warning might exacerbate the patient's risk, however, alternative protective...

The duty to warn/protect: issues in clinical practice.

The duty of therapists to warn or protect third parties when a patient expresses a threat was established by the court in the Tarasoff decision. Confidentiality, disclosure, and prediction of violence are clinical, ethical, and legal issues that the therapist must address in the context of a therapeutic relationship. Clinical case material from the literature, as well as cases from the authors'...

Status of the psychiatric duty to protect, circa 2006.

States have responded to the Tarasoff duty to protect by passing statutes in all but 13 states. Such statutes either mandate or permit warning a potential victim. In this study, we analyzed 70 Tarasoff-related cases from a Westlaw-based search between 1985 and 2006. We determined the extent to which clinicians are being held liable for breach of the Tarasoff duty in statutory and nonstatutory s...