1976), was a case in which the Supreme Court of California held that mental health professionals have a duty to protect individuals who are being threatened with bodily harm by a patient.

The original 1974 decision mandated warning the threatened individual, but a 1976 rehearing of the case by the California Supreme Court called for a "duty to protect" the intended victim.

The professional may discharge the duty in several ways, including notifying police, warning the intended victim, and/or taking other reasonable steps to protect the threatened individual.

Poddar began to improve and entered therapy with Lawrence Moore, a psychologist at the student health service at Cowell Memorial Hospital in 1969.

Several weeks later, on October 27, 1969, Poddar carried out the plan he had confided to Moore, stabbing and killing Tarasoff.

"We conclude that the public policy favoring protection of the confidential character of patient-psychotherapist communications must yield to the extent to which disclosure is essential to avert danger to others.

"[3]: 442 Justice Mosk wrote a partial dissent,[3]: 451  arguing that (1) the rule in future cases should be one of the actual subjective prediction of violence on the part of the psychiatrist, which occurred in this case, not one based on objective professional standards, because predictions are inherently unreliable; and (2) the psychiatrists notified the police, who were presumably in a better position to protect Tarasoff than she would be to protect herself.

Justice Clark dissented, quoting a law review article that stated, "…the very practice of psychiatry depends upon the reputation in the community that the psychiatrist will not tell.