breaking now…

http://darkknighttruth.wordpress.com

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

But if I am only for myself, who am I?

If not now, when?

Holmes, 24, was seeing school psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Fenton in the week’s leading up to the shooting. Fenton, alarmed by Holmes and worried about a possible violent streak, warned the school’s Behavioral Evaluation and Threat Assessment (BETA) team, the Denver Post reported this week.”

What more could Dr Fenton have done?

In Florida, Dr Fenton could have “Baker Acted” Holmes, or a concerned member of the school community who had contact w. Holmes could have gone to the court house and filed a Petition and Affidavit Seeking ExParte Order Requiring Involuntary Examination.

Holmes: Does the Colorado Statute Bar Recovery?

I’m not sure if you meant that you had no access to LexisNexis at the moment you typed this or at all. If the latter, here is LexisNexis Colorado Laws, Constitution and Revised Statutes:

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/colorado/

You can do a quick search for “civil liability mental health” and it will find the relevant statute for you. Incidentally, I posted the statute above.

Also, here is the relevant statute:

§ 13-21-117. Civil liability – mental health care providers – no duty

A physician, social worker, psychiatric nurse, psychologist, or other mental health professional and a mental health hospital, community mental health center or clinic, institution, or their staff shall not be liable for damages in any civil action for failure to warn or protect any person against a mental health patient’s violent behavior, and any such person shall not be held civilly liable for failure to predict such violent behavior, except where the patient has communicated to the mental health care provider a serious threat of imminent physical violence against a specific person or persons. When there is a duty to warn and protect under the circumstances specified above, the duty shall be discharged by the mental health care provider making reasonable and timely efforts to notify any person or persons specifically threatened, as well as notifying an appropriate law enforcement agency or by taking other appropriate action including, but not limited to, hospitalizing the patient. A physician, social worker, psychiatric nurse, psychologist, or other mental health professional and a mental health hospital, community mental health center or clinic, institution, or their staff shall not be liable for damages in any civil action for warning any person against or predicting a mental health patient’s violent behavior, and any such person shall not be subject to professional discipline for such warning or prediction. For the purposes of this section, “psychiatric nurse” means a registered professional nurse as defined in section 12-38-103(11), C.R.S., who by virtue of postgraduate education and additional nursing preparation has gained knowledge, judgment, and skill in psychiatric or mental health nursing. The provisions of this section shall not apply to the negligent release of a mental health patient from any mental health hospital or ward or to the negligent failure to initiate involuntary seventy-two-hour treatment and evaluation after a personal patient evaluation determining that the person appears to have a mental illness and, as a result of the mental illness, appears to be an imminent danger to others.

The University has liability of some sort, only because the doctor worked in/ran the student mental health clinic?

So, say she warned the University but they did nothing, they are still liable. What f they warned the police and THEY did nothing, are they liable? or is it designed to put liability only on those entities who might be profitably sued?

Have there been any cases where being warned actually saved someone?

The Terasoff duty to warn or protect only applies to the therapist in a therapist-patient relationship.

The duty is created if, in the course of treatment, the patient expresses to the therapist a serious threat to harm or kill an identifiable person.

If that happens, the therapist must make a reasonable effort to protect the identifiable person by contacting them, a member of their family,, or the police to warn them about the threat. The therapist breaches the duty if he fails to do that.

If the patient carries out the threat by injuring or killing the identified person and the therapist’s negligent failure to warn or protect the victim proximately causes those injuries, the therapist is liable for the harm suffered by the victim.

If this happened in the Holmes case, the University of Colorado would be liable for the damages caused by the tort of its employees committed in the regular course of their employment.