Court Rules Mental Health Doctors Have Duty To Warn

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Pennsylvania Supreme Court says mental health professionals have a duty to warn of threats made by patients even if they are made against an unspecified person. The 3-2 majority opinion Tuesday upheld a 2018 Superior Court decision that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Presbyterian Shadyside known as Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and other defendants had a duty to warn the neighbors of a patient who told his doctors he wanted to kill his neighbors, even though he didn’t give his doctors a specific name. In 2008, patient Terrence Andrews stabbed and killed his 18-year-old neighbor, Lisa Maas, with a pair of scissors.