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San Antonio State Hospital v. Koehler6/17/1998
Petition for review denied November 4, 1999.
SAN ANTONIO STATE HOSPITAL, APPELLANT
v.
KIM KOEHLER, APPELLEE
Sitting: Phil Hardberger, Chief Justice Alma L. López, Justice Paul W. Green, Justice
The opinion of the court was delivered by: Phil Hardberger, Chief Justice
From the 224th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas
Trial Court No. 93-CI-14026
Honorable David Peeples, Judge Presiding
Opinion by: Phil Hardberger, Chief Justice
REVERSED AND RENDERED
Introduction
This is an appeal from a jury verdict against appellant, San Antonio State Hospital (SASH), on a premises defect claim. A jury awarded appellee, Kim Koehler, $97,015.00, plus prejudgment interest of $34,128.12, post judgment interest, and costs, for injuries she sustained after escaping from SASH, where she was a patient. In light of a recent decision by the Texas Supreme Court, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and render judgment in favor of SASH. Koehler's conditional cross points are overruled.
Facts
In October 1992, Koehler, then 17, was a patient at SASH. She suffered from undifferentiated schizophrenia and had been judicially committed to the hospital. She was taking twenty-one separate medications and had begun to show some signs of improvement, although her condition is incurable.
After attending a hospital Halloween party one afternoon, Koehler escaped the hospital grounds by exiting through a gaping hole in the fence that surrounds the facility. The fence, according to testimony, is about six-feet high, chain link, and runs around the entire premises. It is interrupted by a guard station, where guards admit and check in visitors. The fence, according to testimony and photographs, had at the time several large holes and, in places, could be lifted from the ground.
Koehler left the hospital voluntarily, with a male acquaintance, a former ex-patient who had apparently been visiting her nearly every day for the past month. Testimony at trial indicated that this former patient had gotten onto the premises through a hole in the fence. There was some testimony at trial that hospital policy prohibited visits from ex-patients; this testimony was disputed.
Koehler testified, by way of a videotaped deposition, that her male companion took her to a boarding house, where he made sexual advances, threatened her with a butcher knife, and eventually raped her. There was also evidence that Koehler "decompensated," or regressed, due to the sudden deprivation of her medications. Her mental state became increasingly impaired, and her relationship with her companion increasingly violent. After the two had a particularly physical fight, the proprietor of the boarding house called the police, who returned Koehler to the hospital. She had been absent for three days.
The morning after her return to the hospital, Koehler told her mother that she had been raped. She was given a medical examination, and the results of that examination were consistent with a sexual assault. The two women reported the incident to the police.
While waiting for her daughter during the medical examination, Koehler's mother learned from a hospital employee that there were several gaping holes in the fence around SASH, and that staff members knew about the holes. After complaining to hospital officials, Koehler's mother brought suit against SASH on behalf of herself (for bystander liability and as a guardian of Koehler) and on behalf of her daughter.
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