NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1965 SESSION

 

 

CHAPTER 472

SENATE BILL 44

 

 

AN ACT TO CONFER IMMUNITY ON PHYSICIANS AND OTHER PERSONS WHO REPORT PHYSICAL ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF CHILDREN AND TO AMEND SECTIONS OF THE GENERAL STATUTES TO PREVENT CONFLICT BETWEEN STATUTES AS TO WHETHER THE RELATIONSHIP OF HUSBAND AND WIFE OR PHYSICIAN AND PATIENT WILL PREVENT THE INTRODUCTION OF EVIDENCE OR TESTIMONY.

 

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

 

Section 1.  Article 39 of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes is hereby amended by adding new Sections immediately following G.S. 14-318.1, and immediately preceding G.S. 14-319, to be numbered G.S. 14-318.2 and G.S. 14-318.3 and to read as follows:

"G.S. 14-318.2.  Immunity of Physicians and Others Who Report Abuse or Neglect of Children. Any licensed physician or surgeon, any licensed nurse, any school teacher, principal, superintendent, or other administrative head of a school, or any employee of a county department of public welfare, who in the pursuit of his profession or occupation shall make an observation or acquire information causing him to believe that a child under the age of sixteen years suffers from any illness or has had any injury inflicted upon him as a result of abuse or neglect by a parent, step-parent, guardian, custodian, a person standing in loco parentis to such child, or an institution, or an agent or employee of an institution, having the authority of a parent or guardian over such child, may report to the county director of public welfare of the county where the child resides, the names and addresses of the child and his parents or other persons responsible for his care, the age of the child, the nature and extent of the child's injury or illness, including any evidence of previous injury or illness and any other information that the maker of the report shall believe might be helpful in establishing the cause of the injury or illness and the identity of the person causing or responsible for the abuse, neglect, injury or illness.

"Anyone who makes a report pursuant to this statute and anyone who testifies in any judicial proceeding resulting from the report shall be immune from any civil or criminal liability that might otherwise be incurred or imposed for so doing, unless such person acted in bad faith or with malicious purpose.

"G.S. 14-318.3.  County Department of Public Welfare to Investigate. The county director of public welfare upon receiving the report referred to in G.S. 14-318.2, shall investigate to attempt to determine who caused the abuse, neglect, injury or illness, and shall take such action in accordance with law necessary to prevent the child from being subjected to further abuse, neglect, injury or illness."

Sec. 2.  Physician-Patient; Evidence not Privileged. Notwithstanding the provisions of G.S. 8-53, the physician-patient privilege shall not be a ground for excluding evidence regarding the abuse or neglect of a child under the age of sixteen years or regarding an illness of or injuries to such child or the cause thereof, in any judicial proceeding resulting from a report pursuant to this Act.

Sec. 3. All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 4. This Act shall become effective July 1, 1965.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 11th day of May, 1965.