Q: What obligation do I have to prevent someone’s suicide?

— P.A., Torrance

A: For many years (and it is not a completely obsolete view today), suicide itself was considered a wrong. Legally, this sensitive circumstance you raise focuses on two basic issues: Are you a proximate cause of the person seeking to commit suicide, or do you have a recognized relationship to the person such that you may have a duty to try to prevent his or her suicide?

It is not possible for me to fully respond to your inquiry without knowing more facts. Is the person who may commit suicide a student in your class at school? A patient for whom you are the psychologist? A parishioner in your church? A family member? Are you actually aware that the individual is likely to cause harm to him or herself? There are a number of factors to evaluate to be able to determine if you could possibly have an obligation to try to prevent someone else from taking his or her own life.

Now, if you see someone on a rooftop about to jump off, you are not legally required to go grab him or her or try to do something heroic — you may well do so, but the law does not say you must.

Q: Is a family therapist liable when someone he’s treating commits suicide, and he had reason to know she was severely depressed?

— S.F., Marina del Rey

A: There is a well-known California case decision referred to as “Tarasoff,” which holds that therapists have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent threatened danger of harm to another. So, for example, the therapist might have to warn the intended victim, or take other reasonable action called for under the circumstances (such as calling the police). The “duty to protect” under Tarasoff, however, has not in my view been extended to patients who present a threat of self-inflicted harm.

That said, the therapist has to conduct him or herself in a reasonably prudent manner to try to prevent a suicide. Under California Evidence Code Section 1024, a psychotherapist has the right to disclose to others as necessary to prevent a threatened danger; thus, alerting a spouse or parent of a suicidal patient could indeed be quite appropriate.

Resources

Two links (among many) online that are of help concerning issues of suicide are www.cde.ca.gov/ls/cg/mh/suicideprevres.asp and www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/MH/Pages/SuicidePrevention.aspx. Note that California has an Office of Suicide Prevention, part of the California Department of Mental Health. The address is 1600 Ninth Street, Room 150, Sacramento, CA 95814. Phone: 916-651-1178. Email: SuicidePrevention@dmh.ca.gov. The National Suicide Prevention Lifelife is available 24/7 at 800-273-TALK.

Ron Sokol is a Manhattan Beach attorney with more than 30 years of experience. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email questions and comments to him at RonSesq@aol.com or write to him at Ask The Lawyer, Daily Breeze, 21250 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 170, Torrance, CA 90503. This column is a summary of the law and not a substitute for legal consultation on any particular case.