Individuals authorized under this part to detain a person for 72-hour treatment and evaluation pursuant to Article 1 (commencing with Section 5150) or Article 2 (commencing with Section 5200), or to certify a person for intensive treatment pursuant to Article 4 (commencing with Section 5250) or Article 4.5 (commencing with Section 5260) or Article 4.7 (commencing with Section 5270.10) or to file a petition for post-certification treatment for a person pursuant to Article 6 (commencing with Section 5300) shall not be held either criminally or civilly liable for exercising this authority in accordance with the law.
Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 5278
Judicial Review
Known as the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act
The act spans §§ 5000 to 5550 (263 sections).
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Bias v. Moynihan (2007)
Most recently applied in 214 F. Supp. 3d 908 - Lofthus v. Long Beach Veterans Hospital (October 2016)
Amended by Stats. 1988, Ch. 1517, Sec. 12.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.