## Facts

- John W. Hinckley Jr. shot and seriously injured James S. Brady, Timothy J. McCarthy, and Thomas K. Delahanty during an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.
- Dr. John J. Hopper Jr., a Colorado psychiatrist, had treated Hinckley as an outpatient from late October 1980 until March 1981.
- The victims sued Dr. Hopper for negligence, alleging that competent psychiatric evaluation would have revealed severe mental illness and dangerousness and would have uncovered Hinckley’s obsession with Jodie Foster, interest in assassination materials, and firearms practice.
- The complaint did not allege that Hinckley communicated any explicit threats to Dr. Hopper against President Reagan, the plaintiffs, or any identifiable person.
- Plaintiffs alleged Dr. Hopper should have taken protective steps (e.g., warning authorities or arranging more restrictive treatment) that would have prevented the shootings.

## Issues

1. Under Colorado law, does an outpatient psychiatrist owe a duty to protect unidentified third parties from a patient’s violent acts when the patient did not communicate specific threats against specific, identifiable victims?

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal for failure to state a claim.
- Predicting Colorado law, the court held Dr. Hopper owed no legal duty to the plaintiffs on the allegations pleaded because there were no communicated specific threats toward specific, identifiable victims.
- Because no duty was shown, the negligence claim could not proceed.

## Legal Principles

- In negligence, duty is a threshold requirement; without a legally recognized duty, a complaint fails even if harm occurs.
- Absent controlling state precedent, a federal court sitting in diversity must predict how the state’s highest court would rule.
- A therapist’s duty to protect third parties is generally limited to situations involving specific threats to specific, identifiable potential victims; generalized dangerousness without such threats does not create a duty to protect members of the public.
- Lack of a special relationship with the injured third parties, combined with the absence of specific threats, defeats foreseeability sufficient to impose a duty to act.

## Conclusion

The court held that, as Colorado law was best predicted, an outpatient psychiatrist has no duty to protect unidentified third parties from a patient’s violence when the patient has not conveyed specific threats against identifiable victims, so the victims’ negligence complaint was properly dismissed.


Brady v. Hopper, 751 F.2d 329 (10th Cir. 1984)