Pen. Code, § 11161.9 · Article 2. Reports of Injuries
Pen. Code, § 11161.9
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) A health practitioner who makes a report in accordance with this article shall not incur civil or criminal liability as a result of any report required or authorized by this article.
(b) (1) No person required or authorized to report pursuant to this article, or designated by a person required or authorized to report pursuant to this article, who takes photographs of a person suspected of being a person described in this article about whom a report is required or authorized shall incur any civil or criminal liability for taking the photographs, causing the photographs to be taken, or disseminating the photographs to local law enforcement with the reports required by this article in accordance with this article. However, this subdivision shall not be deemed to grant immunity from civil or criminal liability with respect to any other use of the photographs.
(2) A court may award attorney’s fees to a commercial film and photographic print processor when a suit is brought against the processor because of a disclosure mandated by this article and the court finds that the suit is frivolous.
(c) A health practitioner who, pursuant to a request from an adult protective services agency or a local law enforcement agency, provides the requesting agency with access to the victim of a known or suspected instance of abuse shall not incur civil or criminal liability as a result of providing that access.
(d) No employee shall be discharged, suspended, disciplined, or harassed for making a report pursuant to this section.
(e) This section does not apply to mandated reporting of child abuse, as provided for in Article 2.5 (commencing with Section 11164).
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 1993, Ch. 992, Sec. 6. Effective January 1, 1994.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=11161.9.
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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