Scope of Civil Liability Under the Mental Health Procedures Act

In the case of Leight v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Physicians, No. 2018 Pa. Super. 359 (Pa. Super. Dec. 31, 2018 Bender, P.J.E., Lazarus, J., and Musmanno, J.) (Op. by Musmanno, J.), the Plaintiffs appealed from a dismissal of their personal injury claims under the Mental Health Procedures Act against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and other physicians who had treated a mentally ill person that had injured the Plaintiff in a shooting incident.  

The Plaintiffs filed suit against the medical providers alleging a failure to warn and negligence of their treatment of the shooter.   The Plaintiffs alleged that, although the shooter had increasingly violent encounters and had been treated for both schizophrenia and medication non-compliance, the medical providers allegedly failed to file commitment papers and had, instead, terminated their relationship with that mentally ill patient.  
 The Defendants filed Preliminary Objections asserting that there was no duty to warn or to protect the Plaintiff from the shooter under the Mental Health Procedures Act.  

The Superior Court affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the claims based upon a ruling that the Mental Health Procedures Act did not apply to voluntary outpatient treatment.  

More specifically, the Superior Court noted that the physicians’ mere consideration, during voluntary outpatient treatment of a patient, of  possibly initiating an involuntary examination of a suspected mentally ill person was insufficient to trigger the scope and provisions of the Mental Health Procedures Act.  

The court further specified that a plain reading of the Act showed that it only applied to involuntary treatment and voluntary inpatient treatment of mental ill persons.   Accordingly, the court held that the cause of action provision of the Act did not apply to the voluntary outpatient treatment that the shooter had received from the physicians in this case.   

Anyone wishing to review a copy of the decision may click this LINK. 

Source: “Digests of Recent Opinions.” Pennsylvania Law Weekly (Jan. 22, 2019).  
 

Pennsylvania Superior Court Addresses Duty Of Mental Health Providers to Warn Others of Dangers Posed by Psychiatric Patient Who Threatens

In the case of Maas v. UPMC, 2018 Pa. Super. 195 (Pa. Super. June 29, 2018 Bowes, J., Stabile, J., Ford Elliot, P.J.E.) (Op. by Bowes, J.), the Pennsylvania Superior Court denied a Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment involving a case on the duty of  psychiatric treatment providers to warn others of dangers posed by psychiatric patients. 

According to the Opinion, the psychiatric patient threatened to kill “neighbors” and described a sufficiently ascertainable group such that the law imposed a duty upon the treatment providers to warn those persons of the threats.  

 The court noted that a duty to warn exists under these circumstances where the target is identifiable, not just identifiable by name, such that the mental health professionals must use reasonable efforts to identify the potential victims and provide them with warnings.  

In the case, the court noted that the potential group of victims was about 20 people, which was deemed to be manageable of people to warn.  

To review this case, please click HERE. 

I send thanks to Attorney James M. Beck of the Philadelphia office of Reed Smith for bringing this case to my attention.