Opinion ID: 317697
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Helping Hands' attempt to obtain Donaldson's release.

Text: 26 Helping Hands made an inquiry to the hospital concerning the possibility of releasing Donaldson to its custody by a letter dated June 6, 1963: 27 We are interested in the possibility of signing out your patient, Kenneth Donaldson, and taking him as a resident at our halfway house at 3800 Columbus Avenue, Minneapolis. A maximum of six people live here, including our house mother, and myself, as president. At this time we have a room for Kenneth, who has interested us very much through his letters. Enclosed with the letter was a brochure describing Helping Hands and a letter from the Minneapolis Clinic of Psychiatry and Neurology, stating that 'it would be impossible in any of our State Hospitals for a patient to receive the type of attention and care' provided at Helping Hands. The author of this letter pointed out that the woman identified by the letterhead as the founder and director of Helping Hands had 'rehabilitated well over a thousand over the years'. The letter requested information concerning Donaldson's age, health, and 'qualifications for work'. 28 The hospital responded June 17, 1963, in a letter signed by O'Connor, then Clinical Director of the hospital. It gave Donaldson's age, and answered inquiries concerning his health and qualifications for work with the bare statement that Donaldson was 'mentally incompetent at the present time'. The crisp consluding paragraph read: 29 Should he (Donaldson) be released from this Hospital, he will require very strict supervision, which he would not tolerate. Such a release would be to the parents. We see no prospects of his release to any third party at any time in the near future. 30 The jury could have decided that Gumanis and O'Connor acted wantonly and maliciously in issuing this response, and that this conduct foreclosed an opportunity for Donaldson to win back at least a part of his freedom, and to gain access to a level of psychiatric treatment unavailable to him at the Florida Hospital. Each of the defendants sought to shift the responsibility for sending this curt reply to the other's shoulders. They discussed the question in terms of whether hospital rules, in general, fixed responsibility for deciding whether a patient could be furloughed by the attending physician, or the Superintendent or Clinical Director; they did not discuss it in terms of their recollections of the particular event. The jury would have been justified in finding the two jointly responsible for the incident. 31