Situational Anxiety: Psychiatric Commitment Overturned
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
February 1997
Quick Summary: Her behavior may have been eccentric, and her family could be described as dysfunctional. But she could function in society and care for herself, and she was not a substantial risk to herself or to anyone else.
In ruling on a petition for a psychiatric commitment, the court must balance the individual’s right against involuntary confinement in deprivation of personal liberty versus the State’s interest in committing the emotionally disturbed so that they can get treatment.
This person was understandably paranoid about her husband’s actions surrounding their divorce proceedings, and had voiced an isolated threat toward him in that context.
COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO, 1996.
The Court of Appeals of Ohio recently ordered the release from custody of a person involuntarily hospitalized for mental health treatment.
Her psychiatrist was treating her for anxiety over her impending divorce, and had her committed on the grounds that her anxiety had progressed to a circumscribed paranoid delusional disorder.
The court ordered her released. The psychiatrist had no direct evidence of paranoid or delusional behavior, other than statements by her son who the court felt had taken sides with his father in the divorce and thus was not credible. In re Mental Illness of Thomas, 671 N.E. 2d 616 (Ohio App., 1996).