BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1194
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Date of Hearing: May 13, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
1194 (Eggman) - As Amended May 6, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
This bill requires, when an individual is determining if a
person is a danger as a result of a mental health disorder (for
the purposes of deciding whether the person meets criteria for a
AB 1194
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"5150" involuntary hold), the individual to consider available
relevant information about the historical course of the person's
mental disorder, if the individual concludes that the
information has a reasonable bearing on the determination. It
also specifies danger is not limited to danger of imminent harm.
FISCAL EFFECT:
Negligible state fiscal effect.
There is a theoretical potential for state-reimbursable mandate
costs associated with the requirement that an application for
detention must record whether the historical course of the
person's mental disorder was taken into consideration, and with
the requirement to consider historical course of a mental
disorder under certain circumstances. However, the additional
effort required to collect this data appears unlikely to
generate significant state-reimbursable costs.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. The author argues that this bill simply clarifies
that when a person with a mental health disorder is a danger
to themselves or others, the term danger is not limited to
imminent or immediate risk of harm to themselves or others.
Rather, danger constitutes a present risk or harm that
requires consideration of the historical course of a person's
mental health disorder. The purpose of this bill is to
provide clarity and ensure consistent statewide application of
Section 5150 of the Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC), which
allows involuntary detention. The author contends standards
are applied unevenly. This bill is sponsored by the California
Psychiatric Association.
AB 1194
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2)Background. Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150 allows
specified individuals to take a person into custody and place
the individual in a facility for 72-hour treatment and
evaluation if they believe that, due to a mental disorder, the
individual is a danger to himself, herself, or others, or is
gravely disabled-i.e., unable to provide for basic personal
needs for food, clothing, or shelter due to a mental
disability. The Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, of which
Section 5150 is a part, attempts to balance constitutional
rights to personal liberty with public safety.
3)Opposition. Disability Rights California (DRC) was opposed to
a similar, prior version of this bill, arguing that it was
overly broad and that involuntary detention could occur for
anyone with a history of a mental health disability under its
provisions.
Analysis Prepared by:Lisa Murawski / APPR. / (916)
319-2081