Court Opinion

ID: 9719906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:08:50.838623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:11.097683
License: Public Domain

I concur with the decision reached by my colleagues but do so solely on the basis that Welfare and Institutions Code section 5326.5, *1325subdivision (d) directly and unequivocally addresses the issue raised on this appeal. It states: “A person confined shall not be deemed incapable of refusal [of proposed therapy] solely by virtue of being diagnosed as a mentally ill, disordered, abnormal, or mentally defective person.” Subdivision (c) of that statute recognizes limitations on the right conferred by declaring that “[a] person confined shall be deemed incapable of written informed consent if such person cannot understand, or knowingly and intelligently act upon, the information specified in Section 5326.2.” Thus the competence of the involuntarily confined patient to exercise informed consent must be determined in those nonemergency cases where antipsychotic medication is refused.
In my opinion, my colleagues’ discussion of Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5005, 5152, subdivision (c); 5325, subdivision (f); 5325, subdivision (g); 5325.1, subdivisions (b) and (c); 5326, 5326.6, 5326.7, 5326.15, 5327, 5331, 5358, subdivision (b); and 5358.2 is unnecessary to the decision and, though scholarly and interesting, serves to obscure the narrow statutory basis which supports the decision we have reached.
I share my colleagues acknowledgment and concern that “the interposition of the courts . . . will likely create some logistical problems and delay. . . .” While I am naturally concerned about the consequences of our decision on the already overburdened trial courts, my greater concern is directed toward the decision’s impact upon the short-term crisis intervention program envisioned by the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS) and upon the medical professionals who must treat the patient who has been involuntarily confined because he or she is gravely disabled or a danger to self or others. The time a medical professional is required to devote going to, while at, and returning from a judicial hearing, is time lost from patient care. The longer an incompetent patient may lawfully reject antipsychotic medication which, in the judgment of medical professionals, may offer therapeutic benefit, the more tenuous the possibility for effective crisis management. The matter of developing procedures which are the least intrusive to the medical scheme envisioned by LPS should be, in my judgment, a matter of legislative priority.