In a case of first impression, the state Supreme Court has refused to extend a “specialist duty,” which prohibits mental health practitioners from having consensual sex with their patients and makes those who do susceptible to medical malpractice suits, to general practitioners who provide “incidental mental health treatment.”
In Thierfelder v. Wolfert, the high court ruled 5-1 suspended Justice Joan Orie Melvin did not participate in the decision to reverse a divided May 2009 Superior Court ruling that both general practitioners and psychiatrists “need to maintain the same trust when rendering psychological care.”
