Court Opinion

ID: 9747282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:08:25.860395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:22.441526
License: Public Domain

ROGERS, Chief Judge,
with whom FERREN, Associate Judge joins, dissenting:
In addressing the contentions of Ms. Herman that her personal liberty was unlawfully interfered with, the court is called upon to construe a statute. The statute, known as the Ervin Act,1 provides a comprehensive scheme designed to protect individual liberty again those who seek to confine a person in a mental hospital. In construing the statute, the court must look at the plain words of the statute and, where necessary for an understanding of the language, at the legislative history. See Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 764 (D.C.1983) (en banc); see also Arrington v. United States, 585 A.2d 1342, 1344 (D.C.1991). It is not the role of a court to second-guess a legislative decision to afford statutory protections against interference with individual liberty. See majority opinion at 968. Moreover, in construing the statute the court is neither dictating how medicine is to be practiced, nor, in the instant case, evaluating a particular doctor’s motives or good faith. If the statute, or the court’s construction of it, presents problems for the medical profession or others, the remedy lies with the legislature.
Where individual liberty is at issue, the court cannot dismiss as “abstract rights of the individual,” see majority opinion at 22, or as “hypertechnical” (a word used in a statement in support of the petition for rehearing en banc), the provisions of a statute enacted to protect individual liberty. See Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 509, 92 S.Ct. 1048, 1052, 31 L.Ed.2d 394 (1972) (compulsory psychiatric treatment is “a massive curtailment of liberty”). Consequently, the Ervin Act has been strictly construed against the government by the courts in this jurisdiction. See In re Lo-max, 386 A.2d 1185, 1187-88 (D.C.1978) (en banc) (a statute is to be narrowly construed where its application results in the severe curtailment of individual liberty) (citation omitted); Covington v. Harris, 136 U.S.App.D.C. 35, 41, 419 F.2d 617, 623 (1969) (the statute is “narrowly, even grudgingly, construed in order to avoid deprivations of liberty without due process of law”). The majority has offered no persuasive reason to abandon this approach to the construction of the Ervin Act. Were the majority to adhere to the rule of statutory construction that has been the law in this jurisdiction for more than two decades, the government could easily comply with the statute and thereby protect both society and individuals like Ms. Herman while assuring that such persons receive the mental treatment that they need. Instead, the majority jettisons a bedrock of constructional analysis without any apparent concern that it opens the door for a return to a time before the Ervin Act when homeless or “troubling” people, like Ms. Herman, were placed in mental hospitals against their will. See, e.g., Lake v. Cameron, 124 U.S.App.D.C. 264, 267-68, 364 F.2d 657, 660-61 (1966) (en banc) (psychiatric testimony suggesting that a 60-year old woman suffering from senility and poor memory needed watching, because she would wander off, as well as “care and kindness” and “attention,” did not suggest that her illness “required the complete deprivation of liberty that results from commitment to Saint Elizabeths as a person of ‘unsound mind’ ”); id. at 267 n. 9, 364 F.2d at 660 n. 9 (referring to testimony of Superintendent of Saint Elizabeths Hospital in 1963 that “ ‘for many older patients, the primary need was found to be for physical rather than psychiatric care’ ”) (citation omitted).
The effect of the majority opinion is no less than suspension of the statutory and constitutional rights of Ms. Herman, and any person similarly situated, for the period during which she was taken into custody pursuant to an application for emergency hospitalization that did not comply with *970the statute, and hence was a nullity. See In re Morris, 482 A.2d 369, 371, 374 (D.C.1984) (stale examination resulted in § 521 application being null and void; involuntary hospitalization would have continuing social and legal consequences, for example, on right to vote, and might be used to support a future involuntary commitment); see also Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 434, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 1157, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982) (due process requires a procedure appropriate to the “competing interests involved”) (citation omitted). The majority’s effort to restrict judicial review ignores the fact that Ms. Herman’s liberty was first jeopardized by Dr. Goetcheus’ application for emergency involuntary hospitalization. The majority’s reliance on the rationale in the legislative history that “ ‘it is necessary to give the individual immediate attention,’ ” will not bear the weight it is asked to bear. Majority opinion at 964 (quoting S.Rep. No. 925, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. 9 (1964)). Nor, under the majority’s constriction of judicial review, will its conclusion that “the entire statutory scheme postulates independent judicial review as the cornerstone of the protections against erroneous deprivations of liberty.” Majority opinion at 966-968. Neither will the majority’s suggestion that the defects here are insubstantial survive scrutiny. See majority opinion at 968.
The difficulty identified by the majority in affording any relief to Ms. Herman is that the statute fails to state explicitly what occurs when an unauthorized person signs an emergency application for hospitalization of a person otherwise at liberty without conducting the requisite examination. See majority opinion at 963, 964. The legislative history indicates, as the majority points out, that Congress was focusing on the problems of encouraging voluntary hospitalization and protecting the rights of patients who were already civilly-admitted to public hospitals. See majority opinion at 964 n. 13. Hence, the question is whether a court may ignore the illegal interference with a person’s liberty that occurs in the course of deciding whether a person can be held for an emergency examination and diagnosis preliminary to an involuntary emergency commitment to a mental hospital.2
Notwithstanding the majority’s avoidance of the issue, see majority opinion at Part I B, Dr. Goetcheus clearly failed to follow the Ervin Act’s requirements in causing the involuntary emergency hospitalization of Ms. Herman. Section 521 provides that emergency hospitalization of Ms. Herman can only be initiated by the following procedure:
An accredited officer or agent of the Department of Human Services of the District of Columbia, or an officer authorized to make arrests in the District of Columbia, or a physician or qualified psychologist of the person in question, who has reason to believe that a person is mentally ill and, because of the illness, is likely to injure himself [or herself] or others if he [or she] is not immediately detained may, without a warrant, take the person into custody, transport him [or her] to a public or private hospital, and make application for his [or her] admission thereto for purposes of emergency observation and diagnosis. The application shall reveal the circumstances under which the person was taken into custody and the reasons therefor.
D.C.Code § 21-521 (emphasis added). Section 582(b) places a further limitation on physicians and qualified psychologists by requiring that:
A petition, application, or certificate of a physician or qualified psychologist may not be considered unless it is based on *971personal observation and examination of the alleged mentally ill person made by the physician or qualified psychologist not more than 72 hours prior to the making of the petition, application, or certificate. The certificate shall set forth in detail the facts and reasons on which the physician or qualified psychologist based his [or her] opinions and conclusions.
D.G.Code § 21-582(b).
The provisions of § 521 are significant for the categories of persons whom Congress determined would be authorized to apply for involuntary emergency mental hospitalization of an individual. Except for the physician of the patient, the authorized persons are government employees, who are subject to government regulation and limitation of their conduct. A physician of the person, on the other hand, while not subject to such limitations, is by definition looking out for the best interests of his or her patient, exploring with the patient, without conflict of interest, all of the options for receiving appropriate treatment. See Williams v. Meredith, 407 A.2d 569, 573 (D.C.1979) (“physician ... of the person” intended to refer to a physician who would “possess a patient-oriented role identification,” and was a “voluntarily selected professional who owes professional responsibility and a professional’s loyalty to the individual,” by contrast with “public health officers and police officers [who] are guided by their duty to protect the public....,” the exclusion of the latter was intended to reduce conflicts of interest that might jeopardize the physician’s impartiality). Dr. Goetcheus did not fall within any of the categories of persons authorized by § 521 to initiate an emergency involuntary hospitalization.
It is undisputed that Dr. Goetcheus was neither “an accredited officer or agent of the Department of Human Services of the District of Columbia, [nor] an officer authorized to make arrests in the District of Columbia.” It is equally obvious that she was not “a physician or qualified psychologist of [Ms. Herman].” Before Dr. Goet-cheus contacted Ms. Herman for the first and only time, a shelter worker informed her that Ms. Herman did not wish to speak with a doctor and recommended that Dr. Goetcheus remove her stethoscope before speaking with Ms. Herman so that she would not discover that Dr. Goetheus was a doctor. Dr. Goetcheus followed this recommendation to disguise her identity as a doctor. Dr. Goetcheus then proceeded to speak with Ms. Herman for a period of a two to five minutes during which time Ms. Herman had no idea Dr. Goetcheus was a doctor. As soon as Ms. Herman learned that Dr. Goetcheus was a doctor Ms. Herman abruptly terminated the conversation and refused to have any further contact with the doctor. Such negligible contact is wholly inadequate to serve as a basis for concluding that Dr. Goetcheus was Ms. Herman’s physician under the Ervin Act. Dr. Goetcheus may have viewed herself as acting in Ms. Herman’s best interests, but under the circumstances, no reasonable argument can be made that Dr. Goetcheus was the physician of Ms. Herman, and the majority’s attempt to do so fails. The statute plainly requires more than “genuine personal involvement” for a few minutes. See majority opinion at 968. At the very least, Ms. Herman would have had to have been aware of Dr. Goetcheus’ identity as a doctor before Dr. Goetcheus could be deemed Ms. Herman’s physician for purposes of § 521.
But even if, because of possible difficulties presented by Ms. Herman's apparent hostility toward doctors,3 Dr. Goetcheus were deemed to be Ms. Herman’s physician under § 521, the doctor clearly failed to base her application for emergency hospitalization on “personal observation and examination of [Ms. Herman]” as required by § 582(b). In view of the consequences of *972such an intrusion for individual liberty, and the statutory scheme’s preference for voluntary commitment, the three to five minute conversation with Ms. Herman could not, as a matter of law, constitute the statutory examination because the brevity of the contact stemmed from Ms. Herman’s decision to terminate the conversation and not from the doctor’s determination that a three to five minute conversation was a sufficient examination.4 No suggestion appears in the record that alternatives to involuntary commitment were discussed with Ms. Herman or that she had rejected them; nor was there evidence that she was incapable of considering such alternatives.5
Thus, the question is whether the doctor’s failure to satisfy these statutory requirements required Ms. Herman’s release. The answer turns not upon whether the statute provides expressly for such release, as the majority concludes, see majority opinion at 963, 964, but rather on whether these statutory requirements are mandatory or directory. It is a fundamental principle of law that the failure to satisfy a mandatory statutory requirement deprives the government of its ability to proceed further because the government loses jurisdiction over the matter. See, e.g., JBG Properties, Inc. v. District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, 364 A.2d 1183, 1185 (D.C.1976) (stating that to hold that time limits for filing charges are mandatory rather than directory requirements would produce too harsh a result, depriving the Office of Human Rights of jurisdiction); West Penn Power Co. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Comm’n, 104 Pa.Cmwlth. 21, 521 A.2d 75, 78 (1987) (“[failure to follow a mandatory statute renders proceedings void, whereas failure to follow a directory statute does not”) (citing In re Nomination Papers of American Labor Party, 352 Pa. 576, 44 A.2d 48 (Pa.1945)); see also 3 Sutherland, Statutory Construction § 57.08 (5th ed. rev. 1992) (“proceedings are void if something is directed to be done which is the essence of the statute”) (citation omitted). Accordingly, if the requirements of either § 521 or § 582(b), with which the doctor failed to comply, are mandatory, the District government was without jurisdiction to detain Ms. Herman.6 Release is, by virtue of the mandatory nature of the § 521 provisions, an implied remedy of the statutory scheme. See generally 2B Sutherland, Statutory Construction, § 55.02 (5th ed. rev. 1991).
To determine whether a statutory provision is mandatory or directory, the court has “employed a balancing test, weighing the prejudice to a particular litigant against the public interest in the official performing his or her duties.” Arrington v. Unit*973ed States, 585 A.2d 1342, 1344 n. 5 (D.C.1991) (cases cited); see also M.B.E. v. Minority Business Oppor. Com’n, 485 A.2d 152, 155 (D.C.1984). The purpose for which the statute was enacted is a significant part of this analysis. See Arrington, supra, 585 A.2d at 1344-46; JBG Properties, Inc. v. District of Columbia, supra, 364 A.2d at 1185. Another element which should be considered, but is not determinative, is whether the statute includes “consequences of noncompliance.” 3 SUTHERLAND, supra, § 57.08 at 24 (5th ed. rev. 1992). Upon application of the balancing test in the instant case the conclusion follows that both statutory requirements which the doctor failed to satisfy are mandatory.
In In re DeLoatch, 532 A.2d 1343 (D.C.1987), the court rejected the hospital’s suggestion that the statutory requirement, in § 525, that a hearing “shall” be granted within 24 hours of an involuntarily committed person’s request for such hearing, should be read as directory rather than mandatory. Id. at 1344. In finding “no merit” to the hospital’s suggestion, the De-Loatch court also rejected the hospital’s view that the absence of a statutory provision specifying a consequence for failure to comply with the statutory provision was conclusive. Id. at 1344 & n. 2. In addition to the plain language of the statute, the court noted that the underlying purpose of the Ervin Act was “to provide for the often necessary emergency hospitalization of the mentally ill or those believed to be mentally ill while at the same time protecting their constitutional rights,” and that interpretation of the hearing requirement as directory rather than mandatory “would do serious damage to the statutory scheme.” Id. at 1345. Although the court did not spell out its analysis in terms of a balancing test, by holding that any detention of Ms. DeLoatch beyond the 24th hour was unlawful, the court necessarily concluded, in rejecting the hospital’s suggestion that the time requirement be read as directory, that the deprivation of Ms. DeLoatch’s liberty beyond 24 hours outweighed the public interest in detaining her beyond 24 hours. While the majority here does not overrule DeLoatch, its opinion fails to address persuasively why the time limits are mandatory but the requirements for a “physician of the person” and an application based on personal observation and examination are merely directory.7
A balancing test clearly demonstrates that the prejudice a person in Ms. Herman’s position suffers from noncompliance with § 521 and § 582 outweighs the public interest in allowing the hospital to proceed despite the violations of law. The private interest is at its zenith when the government interferes with individual liberty. A person who is forced into a mental hospital against his or her will suffers every second from the deprivation of his or her liberty interest. There is nothing significant about the 24th hour of the deprivation of an individual’s liberty such that one second longer becomes an unbearable burden and yet one second shorter is not. Furthermore, the protection of the liberty interests of the mentally ill is the primary concern of the Ervin Act. As the en banc court observed more than a decade ago in In re Lomax, supra, 386 A.2d at 1188, the “statutory scheme ... evolved out of a ‘profound congressional concern for the liberties of the mentally ill.’ ” (citation omitted). In addition, the en bane court acknowledged in Lomax that a significant element of this protection provided by the core of the Ervin Act included the provision for “involuntary emergency hospitalization only where a certified emergency exists.” Id. at 1188 n. 13. See In the Matter of Rosell, 547 A.2d 180, 185 n. 3 (D.C.1988) (Rogers, J., concurring) (“since emergency *974admission procedures lack some of the safeguards of judicial hospitalization, they should be used only in clear emergencies”) (citing H.R.Rep. No. 1833, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. 1 (1964), and S.Rep. No. 925, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. 16 (1964)). Both § 521’s limitation of the types of persons who are authorized to apply for involuntary emergency mental hospitalization to three distinct categories, and § 582(b)’s express requirements that a “physician or qualified psychologist of the person” conduct a good faith examination of the person to be hospitalized pursuant to an emergency involuntary hospitalization application are clearly directed at ensuring that such emergency hospitalizations occur only where a certified emergency exists.8 The deprivation that an individual suffers by the failure of a physician to abide by these requirements is potentially very great. See In re Lomax, supra, 386 A.2d at 1187-88 (“ ‘statute sanctions] such a drastic curtailment of the rights of citizens’ ”) (quoting Covington v. Harris, supra, 136 U.S.App.D.C. at 41, 419 F.2d at 623).
The public interest, on the other hand, in having proceedings continue despite a doctor’s failure to abide by the physician of the person requirement and the good faith examination requirement is comparatively minor. This is so for one simple reason: the process for preparing an application for emergency hospitalization in the proper manner can begin the moment that an individual is released. See, e.g., In re Feenster, 561 A.2d 997, 1000 (D.C.1989) (citing D.C.Code § 512 (Repl.1989) (release of voluntary patient)); cf. In re Lomax, supra, 386 A.2d at 1189 (hospital has no right of appeal under Ervin Act after a verdict is rendered in favor of the petitioner, but noting that “[b]y the simple expediency of filing a physician’s certificate (or a sworn written statement if a patient has refused examination) ... the whole process may begin anew within the confines and protections of the Act”) (citation omitted). Despite society’s interest in assuring that the dangerously mentally ill are confined, Congress determined that there were prerequisites to taking an individual into custody for an emergency examination and diagnosis. The Ervin Act thereby makes clear that it is relevant how citizens come before the court in connection with involuntary emergency mental hospitalization applications, and that a Ker-Frisbie approach, see note 2, supra, would be inappropriate.
Although the majority acknowledges that due process protections apply, it concludes that those protections do not apply before the hospital’s petition is filed with the court. See majority opinion at 965-966. Thus, it ignores when Ms. Herman’s liberty was first jeopardized as well as the reality that once the commitment process is set in motion by an emergency involuntary application the committee (Ms. Herman) is placed in the position of having to demonstrate to the hospital why she should not be involuntarily committed. The majority concludes that only violation of the statutory timetables would require the release of a person taken into custody under the Act. See majority opinion at 966-967. But the failure to comply with the statutory procedures for taking an individual into custody against his or her will cannot be accurately characterized as harmless. Moreover, unlike the circumstances in Williams v. Meredith, supra, 407 A.2d 569, where only the petitioner’s statutory right to a “physician ... of the person” was violated, Ms. Herman was denied the statutory protection of both a “physician ... of the person” provided by § 521 and the personal observation and examination required by § 582. The majority acknowledges that these are among the “precise safeguards for preventing abuses of the emergency hospitalization procedures.” Majority opinion at 964, 965-966.
Furthermore, without explaining why the core provisions of § 521 and § 582 do not also “evince the intention of Congress to permit emergency confinement,” De-Loatch, supra, 532 A.2d at 1345, only upon application of persons authorized by the *975statute, cf. Lomax, supra, 386 A.2d at 1188 n. 13, the majority intimates that Ms. Herman has other remedies for being taken into custody pursuant to an improper application. See majority opinion at 966-967. However, under the majority’s analysis of those remedies, Ms. Herman, and any person similarly situated, is without any remedy since the record makes clear the doctor’s apparent good faith, which would defeat any tort action, and suggests no basis for a criminal prosecution under § 591.9 At the same time, there is nothing in the statute that prevents the release of Ms. Herman when the threshold statutory prerequisites for interference with a person’s liberty have not been satisfied. Cf. In re Barnard, 147 U.S.App.D.C. 302, 305, 455 F.2d 1370, 1373 (1971) (Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizures is not limited to cases involving arrests). The fact that Congress viewed violations of the Ervin Act as sufficiently serious to deserve criminal punishment does not also mean that Congress intended that other forms of relief would be unavailable where mandatory provisions directed at core protections were violated.10 See In re Morris, supra, 482 A.2d at 374 (initial emergency involuntary detention “null and void” because initiated pursuant to § 521 application based on a stale examination; hospital’s records to be corrected). Nor does the fact that § 527 and § 544 prescribe release indicate any more than that express language was required because release was not otherwise necessary.11
Consequently, I cannot agree with the majority’s view that the doctor’s failure to comply with the statutory requirements under § 521 and § 582 did not affect the jurisdiction of the trial court to order Ms. Herman’s hospitalization pursuant to § 524, within 24 hours after receiving the hospital’s petition for emergency hospitalization. Although the § 524 judicial proceeding is initiated by the hospital’s filing of a petition under § 522, and not by the filing of a valid § 521 application, in the absence of a § 521 application that is not a nullity, there is no basis on which the hospital may confine a person even to prepare the certificate of the on-duty hospital physician or psychologist required by § 522. Thus, there is no way for the court to determine whether there has been compliance with the time limitations in the statute. The 24-hour requirement in § 524 necessarily relies on the fact that an application under § 521 is a prerequisite to the *976hospital’s petition. A precondition of the § 522 examination by the hospital, which results in a petition for a § 524 judicial review, is a valid application under § 521. Because the statutory requirements that the doctor violated are mandatory, the District government lacked jurisdiction to proceed based on that application. Thus, the hospital did not have authority to hold Ms. Herman in order to conduct an examination pursuant to § 522 that could serve as the basis for the hospital’s petition.
The entire purpose of the emergency application process is to gain evidence from an examination of the potential patient to use as a basis for determining whether or not to seek a judicial order of involuntary commitment. It is contrary to the congressional concern about individual liberty as well as the statutory provisions designed to avoid abuse of the emergency hospitalization procedure to conclude that, although the hospital held Ms. Herman unlawfully in order to examine her, the hospital was entitled to rely on the examination conducted while Ms. Herman was unlawfully detained to seek her further involuntary confinement. Prohibition of the use of the results of the examination in subsequent stages of the proceeding or in future proceedings follows from the mandatory nature of the provisions of § 521 and § 582. Therefore, the absence of an express statutory provision providing for the release of Ms. Herman upon violation of § 521 or § 582 is not dispositive; release is, by virtue of the mandatory nature of the § 521 and § 582 provisions, an implied remedy of the statutory scheme. See generally 2B Sutherland, supra, at § 55.02.
Where the majority opinion leaves the Ervin Act is, at best, unclear. Consider the fact that twenty-four hours before Dr. Goe-theus signed the involuntary hospitalization application, the Emergency Psychiatric Response team from D.C. General Hospital concluded, after speaking with Ms. Herman for an hour, that she did not require involuntary hospitalization. Nothing in the record, including Dr. Goetcheus’ application, suggests that an emergency had arisen since that time. Yet, as a result of a brief meeting of three to five minutes between Ms. Herman and a stranger who disguised her identity as a doctor, and who failed to indicate in the emergency application that she had conducted a personal examination, Ms. Herman, who terminated that meeting, was deprived of her liberty in a manner that violates the plain language of the Er-vin Act on involuntary emergency hospitalization for mental treatment. The potential for abuse of the emergency hospitalization process is heightened by the fact that the doctor who signed the application acted at the behest of the homeless shelter where the doctor worked and where Ms. Herman was not going to be allowed to remain. These circumstances underscore the importance of the statutory limitation on the persons with authority to bring about such a dramatic interference with individual liberty.
The net result of the majority opinion, therefore, is to render meaningless the requirements for observation and examination by a physician of the person. It also no longer matters, under the majority’s analysis, who signs a § 521 application. All such statutory violations jeopardizing individual liberty are “cured” by the hospital’s subsequent petition to the court and the court’s review of that petition.12 Even the criminal law does not go so far. Cf. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 572, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (observing in regard to the Fourth Amendment that “[t]he makers of our Constitution * * * conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men [and women]”). Notwithstanding all the layers of protection in the Ervin Act that the majority describes, see majority opinion Part I B, there is no protection against the unlawful deprivation of Ms. Herman’s liberty despite *977the fact that the majority can identify neither a private nor a public remedy for the unauthorized interference with it. Judicial review is not the cornerstone of protection that the majority suggests, see majority opinion at 966-967, where there is not to be any judicial review of the unlawful detention pursuant to an invalid application under § 521 and § 582. While the majority correctly points out that the trial court considers not only the doctor’s emergency application but the hospital’s petition in determining whether to order continued detention, it errs to the extent that it interprets the statute to mean that Congress did not intend to limit emergency commitments to the certified emergencies for which it provided explicit procedures in § 521 and § 582 of the statute.13 See Floyd E. Davis Mortgage Corp. v. District of Columbia, 455 A.2d 910, 911 (D.C.1983) (“a statute is to be constructed in the context of the entire legislative scheme”) (citations omitted); see also Carey v. Crane Service Co., Inc., 457 A.2d 1102, 1105 (D.C.1983) (and cases cited); cf. In re Burton, 541 A.2d 599, 602 (D.C.1988) (interpreting probate reform act after “reading the act as a whole ... together with its legislative history”) (citations omitted). It further errs by concluding that except for time limitations, there is no remedy for significant procedural deficiencies directed at core protections in the Ervin Act.
The pity is that none of this is necessary. Requiring strict compliance with the emergency application provisions of the Ervin Act will not result in leaving at large dangerous, mentally ill persons. To avoid the confusion apparently experienced by the doctor in the instant case, the government simply needs to improve its § 521 application form. Moreover, if there is a legitimate basis for concluding that an emergency hospitalization of Ms. Herman is appropriate, a person who is authorized under the statute may fill out an application. If there is not a legitimate basis for such a drastic interference with Ms. Herman’s liberty on an emergency basis, such authorized person could not do so, and therein lies the protection for all of us. Therein also lies the significance of the fact that twenty-four hours earlier the Emergency Psychiatric Response team found no need for emergency involuntary hospitalization of Ms. Herman. Although the record suggests that Ms. Herman needed care, and that she would not be allowed to remain at the homeless shelter, it does not follow that the only, much less necessary, alternative was emergency involuntary mental hospitalization initiated by a doctor who worked for the shelter and conducted, at most, a cursory examination.
In sum, the majority has needlessly overturned decades of jurisprudence in this jurisdiction requiring the strict construction of the Ervin Act by construing the statute to permit its clear violation and thereby suspend the statutory and constitutional rights of persons like Ms. Herman, while providing no remedy for the unauthorized interference with her liberty. In so doing the majority has failed to provide a reasoned rationale for continuing to treat statutory timetables as mandatory requirements of the Ervin Act while deeming the core signatory and examination requirements, which are prerequisites to a certified emergency commitment, as merely directory. The consequence of its flawed logic is to deny Ms. Herman, and persons similarly situated, the protection of both the statute and the constitution when the burden on the government of strict compliance with the statute is minor and the protection of society is readily achievable under the Er-vin Act. The majority’s suggestion that it adheres to the proposition of strict con*978struction of the Ervin Act, see majority opinion at 967-968, has a hollow ring for Ms. Herman and others who, in the future, may find themselves similarly situated. Ms. Herman was not suspected of any crime but, under the majority view, she is entitled to no greater protection against forcible abduction than a person who is sought to face criminal charges. See note 2, supra. Although the doctor had reason to think that Ms. Herman was mentally ill, that condition did not deprive Ms. Herman of the protections provided by the Ervin Act or the Constitution.
Accordingly, because the mandatory statutory prerequisites for interfering with her liberty by involuntary emergency hospitalization were not satisfied, the government lost jurisdiction to proceed and the trial judge erred by not ordering Ms. Herman’s release. I respectfully dissent.

. See the District of Columbia Hospitalization of the Mentally Ill Act, D.C.Code §§ 21-501 et seq. (1989 Repl.).

. In other words, is the Ker-Frisbie doctrine appropriately applied to civil commitment proceedings. Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 444, 7 S.Ct. 225, 229, 30 L.Ed. 421 (1886) (forcible abduction of person taken from one country to another and one state to another does not invalidate criminal conviction in latter state under Due Process Clause; existence of remedies in state court noted); Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 522, 72 S.Ct. 509, 511, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952) (same; violation of Federal Kidnapping Act does not bar state prosecution of persons wrongfully brought into state by its officers). See United States v. Alverez-Machain, — U.S. -, -, 112 S.Ct. 2188, 2193, 119 L.Ed.2d 441 (1992) (respondent abducted from Mexico to United States can be tried in the federal court for criminal acts; "the rule in Ker applies”).

. It bears noting that such alleged difficulties did not prevent persons from a team from the Emergency Psychiatric Response Division of D.C. General Hospital from speaking with Ms. Herman for approximately an hour on the night before Dr. Goetcheus filled out the application for Ms. Herman's emergency admission. In addition, an investigator from the Public Defender Service spoke with Ms. Herman for "at least an hour and a half" at Saint Elizabeths Hospital, between the time of her emergency admission and the probable cause hearing.

.The word "examination” suggests a detailed pointed quest for information which will aid in reaching a diagnosis. In re Herman, 594 A.2d 533, 540 (D.C.1991) (“'examine' means ‘to inspect or scrutinize carefully’ ”) (quoting Random House College Dictionary 459 (rev. ed. 1986) (Rogers, C.J., dissenting). See Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (15th Ed.1985) at 581. While the length of time that a proper examination of a person pursuant to § 582 will require will vary according to circumstances, and the particular circumstances may cause a physician or qualified psychologist to conclude that a brief examination is sufficient, this is not what happened here. The brevity of the contact was neither the doctor’s decision nor based on the doctor’s determination that so brief and casual a conversation would suffice as an examination. Rather, the contact ceased because of Ms. Herman’s refusal to talk to someone who had misrepresented who she was and in fact was a doctor previously unknown to Ms. Herman. The record does not indicate whether Ms. Herman knew that Dr. Goetcheus worked for the homeless shelter that was trying to evict her. Ms. Porter, a social worker at the shelter, stayed out of sight when Dr. Goetcheus went to speak with Ms. Herman so that Ms. Herman would not see the doctor and the social worker together.

. That there are alternatives is made clear in our decision in In re Artis, 615 A.2d 1148, 1152—53 (D.C.1992), where a nursing home and community living with assistance and supervision were presented as alternatives to inpatient psychiatric treatment and hospitalization.

. D.C.Code § 21-522 authorizes the hospital to: admit and detain for purposes of emergency observation and diagnosis a person to whom application is made under section 21-521, if the application is accompanied by a certificate of a psychiatrist or qualified psychologist on duty at the hospital stating that he [or she] has examined the person and is of the opinion that he [or she] has symptoms of a mental illness and, as a result thereof, is likely to injure himself [or herself] or others unless he [or she] is immediately hospitalized.

. This court has not always held that "shall” is a mandatory command. See Arrington, supra, 585 A.2d at 1344 & n. 5 and cases cited. The court in DeLoatch found "shall” to be a mandatory requirement in the context of the particular statutory scheme. 532 A.2d at 1345. The fact that the time limitations are core concerns because they invoke the provisions for judicial review does not mean that § 521 and § 582 requirements, which do not invoke judicial review, are not also core concerns of the Ervin Act. Cf. majority opinion at 962 ("Since such review is at the heart of due process, we have treated failures to comply with those time limits for invoking such judicial review as implicating a core concern of the Act”).

. These were the statutory prerequisites to forcible abduction that Congress included in the statute to address concern about potential abuse of the emergency procedures. See majority opinion at 964 n. 14.

. D.C.Code § 21-591 (1989 Repl.) creates a felony offense for acting without probable cause to believe a person is mentally ill, acting to deny a person a right under the Ervin Act, or knowingly making a false certificate or application.

. Although there is a rule of statutory construction that the express provision in a statute of one procedure or remedy precludes other alternatives, see McCray v. McGee, 504 A.2d 1128, 1130 (D.C.1986), that rule must be applied sparingly. See National Railroad Passenger Ass’n v. National Ass’n of Railroad Passengers, 414 U.S. 453, 458, 460-61, 94 S.Ct. 690, 694-95, 38 L.Ed.2d 646 (1974) (regarding expressio unius est exclusio alterius, "even the most basic general principles of statutory construction must yield to clear contrary evidence of legislative intent," but finding that legislative history showed that Congress had considered and rejected alternative remedy, and therefore understood statute as providing exclusive remedy); Carter v. Director, Office of Worker’s Compensation Programs, 243 U.S.App.D.C. 179, 182-83, 751 F.2d 1398, 1401-02 (1985) (exclusio unius est exclusio ulterius "has force ... only when there is no apparent reason for the inclusion of one disposition and the omission of a parallel disposition except the desire to achieve disparate results”); National Petroleum Refiners Ass’n v. F.T.C., 157 U.S.App.D.C. 83, 87, 482 F.2d 672, 676 (1973) (“the maxim of statutory construction expressio unius est exclusio ulterius ... is increasingly unreliable ... for it stands on the faulty premise that all possible alternate or supplemental provisions were necessarily considered and rejected by the legislative draftjers]”) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 951, 94 S.Ct. 1475, 39 L.Ed.2d 567 (1974); Potomac Passengers Ass’n v. Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co., 154 U.S.App.D.C. 214, 475 F.2d 325, 331 (1973) ("Whatever superficial appeal the maxim [ex-pressio unius est exclusio ulterius ] may have, courts have often noted that it must be applied with a certain degree of caution. It is only an aid to statutory interpretation, not a rigid rule of law”) (citations omitted), rev’d sub nom. on other grounds, 414 U.S. 453, 94 S.Ct. 690, 38 L.Ed.2d 646 (1974), vacated 161 U.S.App.D.C. 237, 494 F.2d 1156 (1974).

.These sections require release even though a person who is an emergency committee may suffer from a mental illness if, as a result of that mental illness, the patient is not likely to be a danger to himself or to herself or to others.

. The majority’s effort to avoid the "cure” doctrine, in recognition of the reality that there is no "cure” of a violation of Ms. Herman's statutory rights, see majority opinion at 967, is unsuccessful: in its view, the violation still presents no obstacle to the continued detention of an individual.

. The decision in Williams v. Meredith, supra, 407 A.2d at 574, is likewise flawed because it failed to apply the balancing test to determine whether the physician of the person (or family physician) provision was a mandatory or discretionary requirement of the Ervin Act. In Williams, the court stated that a member of the Commission of Mental Health could not be the physician of the person for purposes of signing an emergency commitment order under § 521, but nonetheless concluded that the error was cured by a later probable cause hearing. Id. at 573-74. Our decision in DeLoatch, supra, 532 A.2d at 1343, was likewise flawed to the extent that it viewed the physician of the person requirement, an important statutory safeguard against abuses of the emergency commitment process, as a "minimal procedural deficiency.”