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Case ReportARTICLES

Misapplication of the Tarasoff Duty to Driving Cases: A Call for a Reframing of Theory

Roderick W. Pettis and Thomas G. Gutheil
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online September 1993, 21 (3) 263-275;
Roderick W. Pettis
J.D., M.D.
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Thomas G. Gutheil
M.D.
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Abstract

In the years since the original Tarasoff cases created a new duty for psychotherapists toward third parties harmed by patients' violence, a series of cases nationwide—so called “driving cases”—have applied Tarasoff-like reasoning to situations where a patient injured others while driving a car. Our thesis in this paper is that such application is inappropriate since it represents an unjustified and largely unexamined assumption that driving injury is an expression of the mental-illness-derived intended violence that justifies the Tarasoff duty and its inevitable associated breach of confidentiality. We suggest to the contrary that driving cases almost invariably result from a patient's negligent driving rather than intentional violence stemming from mental illness; that clinicians in most instances have almost no capacity, training, or clinical bases on which to predict a patient's future negligence, violence aside; and that the theory of driving cases should be revised.

  • Copyright © 1993, The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
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Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online: 21 (3)
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
Vol. 21, Issue 3
1 Sep 1993
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Misapplication of the Tarasoff Duty to Driving Cases: A Call for a Reframing of Theory
Roderick W. Pettis, Thomas G. Gutheil
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Sep 1993, 21 (3) 263-275;

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Misapplication of the Tarasoff Duty to Driving Cases: A Call for a Reframing of Theory
Roderick W. Pettis, Thomas G. Gutheil
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Sep 1993, 21 (3) 263-275;
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