 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Falk v. Southern Maryland Hospital12/7/1999
A MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDER IS NOT LIABLE FOR THE VIOLENT BEHAVIOR OF HIS OR HER PATIENTS UNLESS HE OR SHE HAD ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PATIENT'S PROPENSITY FOR VIOLENCE AND THE PATIENT INDICATES AN INTENT TO HARM A SPECIFIC VICTIM.
WHEN A MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDER WAS STRUCK BY A PATIENT, CAUSING THE PROVIDER TO KNOCK DOWN AND INJURE ANOTHER PATIENT WHO DIED AS A RESULT, THE PROVIDER IS NOT LIABLE FOR INJURIES OR DEATH TO THE INJURED PATIENT WHEN THERE IS NO INDICATION THE VIOLENT PATIENT INTENDED TO HARM THAT SPECIFIC PATIENT. THE INJURED PATIENT MUST BE A FORESEEABLE, READILY IDENTIFIABLE VICTIM TO THE MENTAL HEALTH PATIENT'S VIOLENCE.
REPORTED
In this case, appellant, John Falk, acting as personal representative of the estate of his mother, Elene Seibert, filed a medical malpractice suit in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County against Dr. Martin Giller, Dr. Manouchehr Sadri, and Southern Maryland Hospital Center, Inc. The complaint alleged that on April 11, 1991, Daniel Ferguson, a twenty-one-year-old psychiatric patient who had been admitted involuntarily to Southern Maryland Hospital's locked-down psychiatric ward eleven days earlier, struck psychiatric nurse Stanley Green with his fist, after two other nurses had refused to grant his request for medication. Green then fell over and knocked down Elene Seibert, who, at that time, was a patient in the same unit. As a result of her fall, Seibert suffered a broken hip and had to have surgery. She died from surgery-related complications on April 30th at the age of eighty-seven.
Falk's suit alleged that it was Dr. Giller, Dr. Sadri, and Southern Maryland Hospital's responsibility to supervise Ferguson and protect Seibert from Ferguson, and that Seibert's death was a direct result of their failure to do so. The defendants moved to dismiss, or in the alternative, for summary judgment based on § 5-609 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings article of the Maryland Code, which governs the liability of mental health care providers for the behavior of their patients.
On September 27, 1996, the court granted Dr. Giller's motion to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiff failed to show how Dr. Giller, as Seibert's treating psychiatrist, could be responsible for Ferguson's attack. The court ordered the suit to proceed against Dr. Sadri, who was Ferguson's treating psychiatrist, and Southern Maryland Hospital to permit the parties to develop additional facts during discovery. On December 3, 1997, however, the court granted Dr. Sadri's motion for summary judgment, finding that the plaintiff failed to make out a viable claim under § 5-609. And on October 1, 1998, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Southern Maryland Hospital, based on the same statute. The sole issue now on appeal is whether the court properly applied this statute in granting summary judgment in favor of appellees, Dr. Sadri and Southern Maryland Hospital.
In reviewing the granting of summary judgment, we determine whether the trial court was legally correct. Imperial v. Drapeau, 351 Md. 38, 44, 716 A.2d 244 (1998). Summary judgment is proper when "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and. . . the party in whose favor judgment is entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Md. Rule 2-501(e).
Section 5-609 in pertinent part provides:
(b) In general. - A cause of action or disciplinary action may not arise against any mental health care provider or administrator for failing to predict, warn of, or take precautions to provide protection from a patient's violent behavior unless the mental health care provider or administrator knew of the patient's propensity for violence and
Page 1 2 3 4 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|