Tag: Proximate Cause

Outpatient Psychiatric Treatment: The Duty to Prevent Patient Suicide

astein Leave a comment

By Alex Stein

In Chirillo v. Granicz, — So.3d —- (Fla. 2016), 2016 WL 4493536, the Florida Supreme Court formulated an important rule for psychiatric malpractice cases. Back in 2001, the First District Court of Appeal decided that psychiatrists assume no liability for an outpatient’s suicide because it is generally unforeseeable. Tort liability, it held, can properly be imposed on a psychiatrist only for a custodial psychiatric malpractice. According to the First District, an inpatient’s suicide is foreseeable and psychiatrists can effectively prevent it by restraining the patient. Lawlor v. Orlando, 795 So.2d 147 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001).

The Florida Supreme Court has now overruled Lawlor. Read More

Organ Transplant Malpractice and the “Proximate Cause”

astein Leave a comment

By Alex Stein

Everyone interested in that area must read Shierts v. University of Minnesota Physicians, — N.W.2d — (Minn.App.2014), 2014 WL 7344014.

This important – yet, unreported – decision deals with a medical-malpractice action arising out of the patient’s death from cancer contracted from a donated pancreas. The trial court dismissed the action summarily based on the “proximate cause” doctrine, and the plaintiff appealed against that dismissal. Read More

“Proximate Cause” and the Patient Suicide Problem

astein Leave a comment

By Alex Stein

This difficult problem and the underlying human tragedy have recently been adjudicated by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in Truddle v. Baptist Memorial Hosp.-Desoto, Inc., — So.3d —- (Miss. 2014).

A hospital patient suffering from a number of illnesses became agitated and aggressive. He took the IV out of his arm and attempted to leave the hospital. When nurses stopped him and forced him back to his room, he hallucinated that someone was trying to rape him. Despite these psychiatric symptoms, the patient was discharged and treated as an outpatient. During his outpatient treatment, he complained to his doctor that the medications he was taking “make him crazy.” Six days after his release from the hospital and two days after his last outpatient appointment, the patient barricaded himself in his bedroom and committed suicide.  Read More

Proximate Cause in Georgia

astein Leave a comment

By Alex Stein

Two days ago, Georgia’s Court of Appeals decided Georgia Clinic v. Stout, — S.E.2d —-, 2013 WL 3497703 (Ga. App. 2013).

This tragic case features an elderly patient with an arthritic knee. Her doctors injected that knee with medication drawn from a multi-dose vial. They did so at their clinic under non-sterile conditions that included poor infection controls, failure to maintain sterile field, and poor hand-washing facilities (the clinic had no sinks and alcohol hand cleaners in the examination rooms). As a result, the patient’s knee was infected with methicillin-sensitive staphylococcus aureus (“MSSA”). Four other patients of the same clinic were also infected with MSSA from the same multi-dose vial.

The patient developed excruciating pain in her knee and became depressed. The doctors treated her for the pain in the knee but neglected the depression. They failed to refer the patient to a psychiatrist. After a short period of time, the patient committed suicide by jumping from the window of her 14th floor apartment. She left behind a suicide note saying that she can’t take her pain anymore and prefers to die. Read More