Senior Trial Partner Peter T. Crean, Partner Emma B. Glazer and Senior Associate Gabrielle F. Murray secured summary judgment in a case involving a patient who was seen in the psychiatric ER for a suicide evaluation following a fight with her husband while intoxicated. While in the ER, she consistently expressed she was not suicidal and requested discharge home. She was discharged home the morning after she presented. Ten days later, while at the couple's vacation home, the patient again became intoxicated and had a fight with friends. She abruptly returned to her full-time home in the middle of the night, where she committed suicide 12 days after discharge from the psychiatric ER.
MCB moved for summary judgment on the basis that the patient underwent a thorough evaluation in the psychiatric ER and did not meet the criteria for admission or extended observation. We supported our motion with the affirmation of a psychiatrist, who further opined that the argument with her friends was an unforeseeable and intervening act and the subsequent suicide was not foreseeable to the psychiatric ER. Plaintiff opposed the motion with an affidavit from a psychologist, not a medical doctor.
The Court found that plaintiff's psychologist expert was not qualified to raise a triable issue of fact against a medical doctor, a psychiatrist. The Court further found that even if the expert was qualified, he/she did not raise a triable issue of fact on liability or causation, because there was no evidence the patient met criteria for admission at the time of her ER presentation and there was an intervening act that caused her suicide.