A mental health professional fulfilled his legal duty to warn his patient's ex-girlfriend of potential harm by the patient when during a telephone conversation shortly before her death, the doctor told her not to go to the patient's apartment.

Joseph killed his ex-girlfriend Miss Hausler when she returned to the apartment that she had shared with him to retrieve her clothing. Early that morning, Joseph called Dr. Scuderi, a counselor at defendant Center, and told him that he was going to kill Miss Hausler. Dr. Scuderi arranged an immediate session with Joseph. Dr. Scuderi recommended that Joseph admit himself to the hospital. Joseph refused, but assured Scuderi that he would not harm Miss Hausler. Miss Hausler telephoned Dr. Scuderi fifteen minutes later. He instructed her not to go to the apartment. She ignored his instruction and was shot to death fifteen minutes later.

Miss Hausler's estate sued, claiming Scuderi was negligent in failing to adequately warn her of the death threat from Joseph. The trial court dismissed the complaint because in Pennsylvania a mental health professional has no legal duty to warn a third party of a patient's dangerous propensities. The trial court noted that if there were a duty to warn, Scuderi's telephone call to Hausler adequately discharged that duty.

On appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted the Tarasoff standard and established a legal duty for mental health professionals to warn third parties of immediate and specific threat that a patient may carry toward those third parties. The Court, however, agreed with the trial court and found that Dr. Scuderi's telephone warning to Miss Hausler was sufficient to discharge his duty toward her. The court thus exculpated the medical center from liability in Miss Hausler's death.