The Texas Supreme Court has thrown out a McLennan County jury’s award of $800,000 to the parents who sued a Waco hospital system after their 21-year-old son committed suicide 33 hours after a mental health evaluation.  

 

The divided court issued three opinions in the case. The majority opinion, written by Justice Nathan Hecht, reverses a 170th State District Court verdict from September 2001 and a split 10th Court of Appeals opinion and was joined by Justice Scott Brister, Justice Paul Green, Justice Phil Johnson and Justice Don Willett.

 

A dissenting opinion, which would have upheld the $800,000 verdict, was written by Justice Harriet O’Neill and joined by Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and Justice David Medina.

 

An opinion written by Justice Dale Wainwright concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority opinion.

 

Jimmy and Carolyn Dowell, formerly of Teague in Freestone County, alleged in their lawsuit that officials at Providence Health Center and the DePaul Center, a psychiatric hospital operated by the Daughters of Charity Health Services of Waco, were negligent for allowing their son, Lance, to leave the hospital after he had slit his left wrist and threatened suicide in 1997.

 

Colin O’Neill, who represents the hospital, said officials at Providence and DePaul continue to sympathize with the Dowell family for the loss of their son.

 

“The Supreme Court, after careful review of the trial record, correctly concluded that Providence and DePaul have no legal liability for this tragedy,” O’Neill said. “As noted by the Supreme Court, there was no evidence that Mr. Dowell could have been involuntarily admitted, that he would have consented to hospitalization or that any short-term hospitalization would have made his suicide unlikely.

 

“The court also noted that he did not exhibit any unusual conduct following his discharge or that any of his family or friends believed further treatment was required,” he said.

 

Houston attorney Sharon Cullen, who represents the Dowell family, said she will file a request that the Supreme Court reconsider its ruling. She declined additional comment.

 

Hecht, writing for the majority, concluded that Lance, distraught over losing his girlfriend, had calmed down by the time he got to the hospital and made it clear that he didn’t want to stay. His mother, a registered nurse, did not object to his release. Lance promised not to commit suicide and to remain with his family until he could go for a follow-up assessment.

 

He went to a rodeo and a family reunion with his brother later that weekend and repeatedly assured his mother that he was OK, according to Hecht’s opinion.

 

His mother and brother believed him, and no one else reported anything unusual in his behavior, the opinion states. However, 33 hours after his release from Providence, Lance hanged himself in a tree at his family’s farm.

 

The majority opinion rejects the Dowells’ claims that negligence by the emergency room physician and nurse in releasing him were a proximate cause of his death, saying that any connection between his release and death is “too attenuated for proximate cause.”

 

In her dissenting opinion, O’Neill noted that Lance’s family offered expert evidence that the suicide-risk assessment performed in the emergency room, which lasted less than three hours, was “so cursory and incomplete as to breach the standard of care.”

 

O’Neill said she would have affirmed the trial court’s verdict because, in reversing the verdict, the majority “constructs new legal hurdles that are insurmountable, particularly when, as here, the provider’s alleged negligence results in death. Because the court misapplies the law and disregards relevant evidence, I respectfully dissent,” O’Neill wrote.

 

There is no evidence that, had it been explained to Lance that it was in his best interest to stay, he would have refused, O’Neill concludes.

 

“If anything, the nurse in this case appeared to discourage Lance’s hospitalization, advising his mother that a stay ‘would just run up a big bill’ and admonishing Lance that he should have insurance,” according to the dissenting opinion.