Monday, July 19, 2021
NJ Tarasoff Case: Coleman v. Martinez
The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the Appellate Division's overturn of a grant of summary judgment; the majority held that a licensed social worker owed a common law duty to the victim of a schizophrenic patient:
In sum, Martinez treated a patient convicted of two violent assaults at a
dire time in her life and proceeded to watch her decompensate. Further, once
that decompensation became a barrier to T.E.’s reunification with her children,
Martinez identified Coleman as an antagonist and personification of that
barrier. “It does not seem highly extraordinary” that those actions would result
in a violent assault against Coleman.
The opinion is here: Download Coleman.martinez.nj.2021 (Thanks to George Conk for the tip.)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/tortsprof/2021/07/nj-tarasoff-case-coleman-v-martinez.html