Ewing

SUMMARY

The parents of a victim killed by a therapist’s patient sued the therapist for wrongful death based on the therapist’s failure to warn the victim after the therapist received a communication that the patient threatened to kill or cause serious physical harm to the victim. The trial court granted the therapist’s motion for summary judgment on the ground he was immune from liability under Civil Code section 43.92 because the threat was communicated to the therapist by the patient’s father rather than by the patient himself.

We conclude the trial court too narrowly construed section 43.92. First, a communication from a family member to a therapist, made for the purpose of advancing a patient’s therapy, is a “patient communication” within the meaning of section 43.92. Second, a therapist’s duty to warn a victim arises if the information communicated leads the therapist to believe or predict that the patient poses a serious risk of grave bodily injury to another.

Summary judgment was erroneously granted inasmuch as the communication to the therapist by a member of the patient’s family of the patient’s threat to kill or cause grave bodily injury to the victim raised…