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Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California
California Supreme Court (1976) | 551 P.2d 334; 17 Cal. 3d 425; 131 Cal. Rptr. 14; 83 A.L.R. 3d 1166; 1976 Cal. LEXIS 297
TL;DR: A university psychologist's patient killed a woman after revealing his intent to do so. The court found that when a therapist determines a patient poses a serious danger to another, the therapist has an affirmative duty to use reasonable care to protect the foreseeable, identifiable victim.
Legal Significance: This landmark case established a psychotherapist's affirmative "duty to protect" an identifiable third party from a patient's foreseeable violence, creating a major exception to the general rule of no duty to control another's conduct and impacting therapist-patient confidentiality.