Murder By Discharged Involuntary Psych Patient: Court Rules Hospital Is Not Liable.

Murder By Discharged Involuntary Psych Patient: Court Rules Hospital Is Not Liable.

Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

September 2018

The hospital had a legal duty to hold and control the patient while he was lawfully committed to the hospital for treatment pursuant to a court order. However, the hospital’s duty to control the patient was limited to the period when the hospital had actual custody of the patient.

The court order by its very wording limited the patient’s involuntary psychiatric detention to the period of time during which his caregivers in their clinical judgment determined he presented a risk of harm. The hospital’s legal right and legal responsibility to hold and control the patient ceased when his treating physician reached the clinical judgment that the patient no longer presented a likelihood of serious harm by reason of mental illness. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS August 14, 2018

Three weeks after being discharged from a court-ordered involuntary psychiatric commitment a former patient at the hospital broke into his neighbor’s home and stabbed the neighbor to death in front of her eight year-old granddaughter. The neighbor’s daughter sued the hospital for alleged negligence in prematurely releasing the patient. The daughter sued in her capacity as administrator of her deceased mother’s probate estate and as the parent of her own daughter. The lawsuit sought damages from the hospital for the deceased’s wrongful death and for the emotional trauma to the child forced to witness her grandmother’s brutal murder.

The patient had been held several times at the hospital for involuntary court-ordered mental health commitments. One time he had been brought in by the police after a report that he had threatened his own mother with a knife.

This time his family brought him in because he was acting bizarre. The patient himself admitted he threatened a family member, but the family member did not corroborate that. He stayed in the E.R. overnight until a psychiatric bed was available. In the morning, based on the certification of a physician who practiced at the hospital, the hospital superintendent filed court papers. The court ordered him held for treatment until his caregivers determined he no longer posed a threat of harm.

After treatment for three weeks in the hospital the treating physician determined he no longer posed a threat of harm and was ready for release. Three weeks after that he committed his brutal crime. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled the hospital had no legal right or responsibility to hold the patient or to control his behavior after the treating physician determined he could be released.

In filing their civil lawsuit the family elected to sue only the hospital. The physician and the other hospital caregivers were not named as defendants. Although it was not germane to its decision, the Court pointed out that the physician or other caregivers could have been held liable if the patient had voiced a threat of harm that identified this specific victim and the physician or other caregivers failed to warn that person and report the threat to law enforcement. That was a moot point in this case because the patient, although he had voiced threats about other persons in the past, never verbalized a threat concerning this particular victim. Williams v. Health Care, __ N.E. 3d __, 2018 WL 3851864 (Mass., August 14, 2018).