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RCW 71.05.120

Exemptions from liability.

Applied in 23 court decisions — leading case 100 Wash. 2d 421 - Petersen v. State (1983)

Most recently applied in In re Det. of A.C. (July 2023)

2020 c 302 s 11; 2019 c 446 s 22

How often courts cite this section

19831990200020102020202330
citing decisions per year

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.

(1) No officer of a public or private agency, nor the superintendent, professional person in charge, his or her professional designee, or attending staff of any such agency, nor any public official performing functions necessary to the administration of this chapter, nor peace officer responsible for detaining a person pursuant to this chapter, nor any designated crisis responder, nor the state, a unit of local government, an evaluation and treatment facility, a secure withdrawal management and stabilization facility, or an approved substance use disorder treatment program shall be civilly or criminally liable for performing duties pursuant to this chapter with regard to the decision of whether to admit, discharge, release, administer antipsychotic medications, or detain a person for evaluation and treatment: PROVIDED, That such duties were performed in good faith and without gross negligence.

(2) Peace officers and their employing agencies are not liable for the referral of a person, or the failure to refer a person, to a behavioral health agency pursuant to a policy adopted pursuant to RCW 71.05.457 if such action or inaction is taken in good faith and without gross negligence.

(3) This section does not relieve a person from giving the required notices under RCW 71.05.330(2) or 71.05.340(1)(b), or the duty to warn or to take reasonable precautions to provide protection from violent behavior where the patient has communicated an actual threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim or victims. The duty to warn or to take reasonable precautions to provide protection from violent behavior is discharged if reasonable efforts are made to communicate the threat to the victim or victims and to law enforcement personnel.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.