Trear

I. Introduction

In this case a father claims he was wrongly accused of sexually abusing his daughter because his daughter’s therapist implanted the idea in her mind. He has now sued the daughter’s therapist for “professional negligence,” that is, malpractice, despite the fact that he was never the therapist’s patient. The case comes to us on a judgment after a demurrer without leave to amend. This court is thus faced with the question of whether the professional duty of the therapist extends beyond the patient to the patient’s parent.

The answer must be no. As we explain, to extend the duty of a therapist to persons who have a relationship with the patient in the context of a perceived recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse is to saddle the therapist with a divided loyalty in an inherently adversarial situation.

II. Facts

The facts are simple, largely because they derive from two source documents: a complaint filed by Kathleen Searles against her father, James Trear, in January 1992, and another complaint, which is the basis of this appeal, filed by Trear against Searles’s therapist, Judith Sills, in April 1994.

Kathleen Searles was bom in 1945. She was adopted…