Ewing v. Goldstein

Ewing v. Goldstein 15 Cal. Rptr. 3d 864 (Cal. Ct. App. 2004) is a landmark court case that extended California mental health professional's duty to protect identifiable victims of potentially violent persons, as established by Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, to include acting upon communications from third parties that indicate a possible threat.^[1]

Facts

In 2001, former police officer Gene Colello received treatment from David Goldstein, after breaking up with his ex-girlfriend, who had become involved with Keith Ewing. During the course of treatment, Colello told his father about considering harming Ewing, which the father claims to have relayed to Goldstein. There was never any evidence that he did tell Goldstein or anyone else. Goldstein encouraged voluntary hospitalization but did not warn Ewing or law enforcement officials of Colello's hostile intentions, because of not having the information that the father withheld. When Colello was released, he murdered Ewing and then committed suicide.

Ruling

The court ruled that the case should be heard by the lower court. They determined that the duty to protect was not sufficiently discharged by initiating involuntary commitment and could be discharged only by warning the identifiable victims.

Implications

This case created a clear distinction between the duty to protect and the subordinate duty to warn and made communications by a third party indicating threatening statements equivalent to statements made directly by that person.

References

External links

• Text of Ewing v. Goldstein is available from:  Findlaw  Stanford University