Duty to Warn and Protect
Tarasoff, its offspring, and what your state actually requires
In 1969, a university student told his therapist he intended to kill a young woman named Tatiana Tarasoff. Campus police briefly detained him, no one told Tatiana or her family, and he later killed her. Her parents sued, and the California Supreme Court answered twice.
The 1974 decision described a duty to warn the intended victim. The 1976 rehearing, the one that governs, broadened it: when a therapist determines, or reasonably should determine, that a client poses a serious danger of violence to an identifiable person, the therapist must use reasonable care to protect that person.
Warn is one option; protect is the duty
The shift from warn to protect matters enormously in practice. Warning the victim is only one way to discharge the duty. Depending on the situation and your state, protecting can also mean notifying law enforcement, initiating voluntary or involuntary hospitalization, tightening the treatment plan, involving family, or some combination. A counselor who thinks Tarasoff means calling the victim every time has memorized the 1974 case and missed the 1976 one.
State variation is the whole game
Tarasoff was a California case, and states responded in three broad ways.
- Mandatory duty: you must take protective action when the triggering conditions are met
- Permissive rule: you may disclose without liability, but you are not required to
- No duty: a few states have declined to adopt any Tarasoff-style duty at all
The triggering conditions also vary, though the common recipe is a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim. You are responsible for knowing your own state's statute and current case law, because this is one area where the right answer genuinely changes at the state line.
When a client makes a threat, slow down and assess before you disclose: lethality of the plan, access to means, identifiability of the victim, history of violence, and current stressors. Consult a colleague or attorney if time allows, choose the least intrusive action that genuinely protects, and document your reasoning in real time. A thoughtful, documented decision protects the client, the potential victim, and you.
Suicidality is duty to protect the client, not Tarasoff. Tarasoff-type duties concern third parties. Also watch for the contagious disease twist: ACA B.2.c permits, but does not require, disclosure to an identifiable third party at serious risk from a life-threatening communicable disease, when the client will not inform them, and only where state law allows.