Case library / Discipline that arrives from somewhere else
A year of abuse disclosures, no report filed
In short
The LMFT license was surrendered and the surrender accepted by the Board, which is itself the imposition of discipline a
$3,854.00The psychology board heard the evidence and imposed probation; the BBS case ended in surrender.
It shows the mandated reporter duty tested against a year of session notes the clinician wrote herself, and how discipline on one healing arts license travels automatically to the other.
What happened
The respondent held an LMFT license from this Board issued May 15, 2008, and also held a psychologist license. Between February 5 and November 5, 2019, a client attended individual therapy with her two to three times a month. The client had two sons, aged six and ten, and was then married to their father.
Across those months the client described her husband’s violence toward the boys. In February 2019 the older boy said his father choked him while brushing his teeth on vacation; his voice was raspy and his face red. On April 25, 2019 both boys said their father slapped the older boy outside a restaurant. On May 27, 2019 the younger boy said their father had slammed the older boy’s head into a car window and strangled him in the car; the mother photographed the injury. On August 30, 2019 the older boy said his father kicked him in the back and the younger boy said his father slapped him, leaving a red handprint the mother also photographed. The respondent’s own clinical notes recorded the February, April, and August accounts in her own words.
On September 19, 2019 the mother and both children attended a session together. The children told the respondent they had been kicked and slapped, that it happened about once a month, and that they felt scared when alone with their father. She documented all of it. Her November 5, 2019 note recorded that the younger boy had choked a classmate at school and had told his mother he thought it was acceptable because he had seen his father choke his brother. She never reported the suspected abuse to Child Protective Services or to any other government or law enforcement agency.
The mother complained to the Board of Psychology on July 8, 2020. That board filed an accusation on July 6, 2023 and, after a three-day hearing, found that the information reported to her required a child abuse report, that her failure to file one was an extreme departure from the standard of care amounting to gross negligence, that she violated the APA ethics standards, and that her lack of knowledge of her mandated reporter obligations demonstrated a lack of competence to practice psychology. It adopted the proposed decision on April 3, 2024, effective May 3, 2024, and placed her psychologist license on three years of probation. She had admitted at the hearing that she should have filed a report after several of the incidents.
This Board filed its accusation on September 19, 2024, charging her LMFT license on the single ground that another healing arts board had disciplined her. She was served, timely filed a notice of defense, was represented by counsel, and then signed a stipulated surrender of her license.
What it was charged as
Violating, attempting to violate, or conspiring to violate any provision of the marriage and family therapy chapter or any regulation adopted by the Board.
Discipline imposed by another state, territory, or any other governmental agency on a license to practice marriage and family therapy or any other healing art constitutes unprofessional conduct, and a certified copy of that decision is conclusive evidence of it.
The outcome
The LMFT license was surrendered and the surrender accepted by the Board, which is itself the imposition of discipline and part of her permanent license history. She lost all rights as an LMFT on the effective date, may not petition for reinstatement, and may reapply only after three years, meeting all current requirements including examinations.
$3,854.00ordered in cost recovery under B&P §125.3What the rule actually says
Mandated reporting is triggered by reasonable suspicion, not by proof, and it attaches to information you receive in your professional capacity, including an account given to you by one parent about the other. The duty is personal and non-delegable: telling a client to tell a doctor, a school, or the other parent does not discharge it, and neither does the fact that someone else might report. Separately, if you hold a second healing arts license, discipline imposed by that other board is itself unprofessional conduct here, established conclusively by a certified copy of the other board’s decision, with no need to prove the underlying facts a second time.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
This Board never found that she failed to report. Its accusation contained one cause: her psychologist license had been disciplined, which section 4982.25(a) makes unprofessional conduct on its own. The facts came from a three-day hearing at the other board, and a certified copy of that decision is conclusive. That is why the entire substance of this file is a recitation of someone else’s findings, and why the respondent had almost nothing left to contest by the time she was served.
The evidence that decided the underlying case was her own charting. Her February 27, 2019 note records that the boy said “dad was choking him” and that the mother had seen the father pull the boys’ hair. Her April 29, 2019 note records a slap. Her September 4, 2019 note records a kick and a slap that left a red mark. At the hearing she argued the client had given less detail in session than she gave in testimony, but the notes answered that. Careful documentation of disclosures is the right practice; it also means the record of what you knew is written in your own hand.
One note stands out. She wrote that she told the client to warn the father that if he leaves marks and the boys need medical care, she will have to tell the doctor what he did and the doctor will be legally obligated to call CPS. That is an accurate description of someone else’s mandated reporting duty, offered in place of her own. The other board treated her lack of knowledge of her obligations as a competence problem rather than a lapse, which is a harsher finding than negligence about a single incident.
The two dispositions are strikingly different. The board that actually heard the evidence imposed three years of probation and let her keep practicing. The board that inherited the finding as conclusive accepted a surrender. Surrender is discipline: it is public, it forecloses any reinstatement petition, it allows reapplication only after three years as a brand new applicant, it requires the $3,854 to be paid before any new license issues, and it provides that every charge in the accusation is deemed admitted in any future application proceeding before either board.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
A failure to report suspected child abuse is one of the few things a professional liability policy may actually engage with on the civil side, since it can be framed as a negligent act in the rendering of professional services rather than an intentional or criminal one, though a knowing failure to report is a misdemeanor and the criminal exposure is uninsurable. What matters more here is the license defense benefit, which pays counsel for board proceedings. This respondent used it twice, through a three-day hearing before one board and a negotiated surrender before another. No policy restores a surrendered license or pays the $3,854 that must be cleared before any new license issues.
What would have changed it
- Report on reasonable suspicion, not on certainty. If you are weighing whether an account is detailed enough to justify a call, that hesitation is the signal to make it.
- Never route a suspected abuse report through anyone else, including a physician, a school, or the non-offending parent. The duty is yours personally and advice to a client is not a report.
- Write down the date and time you filed each report and keep the confirmation with the chart. This respondent’s own progress notes became the strongest evidence against her, precisely because they recorded the disclosures and nothing about a report.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- The clinician’s progress notes were the central evidence in the underlying case. What does that imply about how to document a disclosure that you are not yet certain rises to reasonable suspicion, and how would you write such a note?
- She advised her client to warn the father that a physician would be obligated to call CPS. Identify precisely where that advice fails as a matter of the reporting law, and separately where it fails clinically for the client and the children.
- One board heard three days of evidence and imposed probation; the other treated the same facts as conclusive and accepted a surrender of the license. What explains that gap, and how should a dually licensed clinician evaluate a surrender offer from the second board?
Source. This write-up is drawn from the signed public decision in the case number above. Names, cities and employers have been removed — why. To pull the original, open the Board's quarterly newsletter archive, find the issue covering May 15, 2025, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
