The duty to warn: a reconsideration and critique.

A previous article in this Journal surveyed a psychotherapist’s legal duty to warn third parties of violent threats made by a patient. Twenty-seven states impose an actual duty to warn (as did the seminal case of Tarasoff v. The Regents of the University of California itself ): Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Nine others, plus the District of Columbia, depart from Tarasoff and purport only to grant permission to warn: Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia. However, no two states approach the issue exactly the same way, and the legal schemes of many impose a substantial burden of guesswork on clinicians (not least because several of the “permission” states appear likely to be “duty” states in disguise). One state, Virginia, rejects Tarasoff. The remaining 13 states have no definitive Tarasoff law (although several appear to be strongly leaning toward some form of duty): Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. In view of this impressive degree of disorganization a quarter of a century after the genesis of the duty-to-warn doctrine, this article offers a critical reexamination of Tarasoff and the duty to warn. Tarasoff v. The Regents of the University of California