Here’s an interesting case scenario that was presented in an ethics textbook as an example of an ethical dilemma. You’ll find rather quickly that it has a simple legal resolution:

You are employed at a community mental health center and delivered services to a client. The client has been killed in an altercation at a local tavern. A reporter for your town’s newspaper seeks you out for information about your client because there have been rumors that your client had a history of violence and had been abusive to his wife and children. The reported wants to know if this is true because, if it is, it may have some relevance in assessing the guilt of the person who killed your client. Should you cooperate with the reporter?

Of course not! The law of confidentiality requires that a client’s confidences be maintained even after the client dies in the interest of protecting the client and his family. This simple case dilemma, like many of those presented on this blog, presents a legal problem that can be resolved by applying the duty to keep a client’s confidences unless a legal exception (the client threatens violence to himself or others, for example). Please read this website’s discussion about confidentiality for more information about confidentiality.

Comments on this scenario are invited!