Title: GT v. Stone

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.



                                 No. 92-041



 G.T.                                         Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      Washington Superior Court


 Claudia Stone in her official                June Term, 1992
 capacity as Hospital Operations
 Director of the Vermont State
 Hospital, et al.


 David A. Jenkins, J.

 Richard J. Whitaker, Vermont Advocacy Network, Waterbury, for plaintiff-
    appellant

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, Montpelier, and Janet Bull, Assistant
    Attorney General, Waterbury, for defendants-appellees



 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



      GIBSON, J.   Plaintiff is a patient at the Vermont State Hospital whose
 release on conditional discharge was revoked in accordance with 18 V.S.A. {{
 8007 and 8008.  The sole question raised by plaintiff's appeal in this
 declaratory judgment action is the constitutionality of Vermont's statutory
 scheme governing such conditional discharges.  We hold that a postrevo-
 cation hearing under { 8008(e) is insufficient to meet Vermont's due
 process standards, and that a prerevocation hearing is required except in
 an emergency, whether or not requested by the patient.  We remand for
 proceedings consistent with this opinion.
      According to the stipulated facts, plaintiff has been hospitalized at
 the Vermont State Hospital (VSH) thirteen times over the past seventeen
 years.  He has been conditionally discharged nine times, and five of those
 discharges terminated in revocations.  Prior to each of the conditional
 discharges, the executive director of VSH made an independent determination,
 based on information provided by plaintiff's care providers in the
 community, that he was a person in need of treatment, as defined under
 Vermont statutory law.
      Plaintiff, with counsel available to him, agreed to each of his
 conditional discharges upon terms consistent with 18 V.S.A. {{ 8007 and
 8008.  Notwithstanding these agreements, plaintiff sought (1) a declaration
 that extensions of conditional discharges and the summary revocation
 procedure countenanced by {{ 8007 and 8008 violate the due process guaran-
 tees of the United States and Vermont constitutions, and (2) an injunction
 against further extensions or revocations without the opportunity for a
 prior due process hearing.
      The trial court denied relief, concluding that {{ 8007 and 8008 were
 consistent with constitutional due process guarantees.  The court further
 held that in agreeing to the terms of conditional release, plaintiff waived
 his right to revocation on grounds other than those specified in { 8008(e),
 and that plaintiff had the option of obtaining a full hearing by seeking
 release under { 7618.  The present appeal followed.
                                     I.
      Plaintiff contends that the act of extending or revoking the
 conditional discharge of a patient judicially committed to VSH implicates a
 liberty interest of the patient subject to the protection of the due process
 clause.  The State relies on the trial court's determination that plaintiff
 remained bound by his December 28, 1990, commitment order when placed on
 conditional discharge.  The State maintains that, by agreeing to the
 continued restriction of his liberties through the conditional discharge,
 plaintiff remained a patient in need of further treatment after discharge.
 Central to the State's argument is the contention that once plaintiff was
 involuntarily committed to VSH, he no longer possessed a liberty interest to
 be free from involuntary confinement, his liberty interest having been
 extinguished by the original commitment order.  The State also relies on the
 language of the conditional discharge statute, arguing that it does not
 create a liberty interest subject to protection by the due process clause.
      The first step in weighing the impact of government action on
 individual rights is to determine whether the specific interest purportedly
 threatened by government is within the contemplation of the liberty or
 property language of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Morrissey v. Brewer,