Court Opinion

ID: 9643710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:38:22.533557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:58.351180
License: Public Domain

*255HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
[1,2] I join Mr. Justice Flaherty’s opinion announcing the judgment of the Court in holding there can be no recovery, as a matter of policy, for these plaintiffs’ litigation related costs. Moreover, I also concur in his reversal of the grant of defendant’s demurrer to those portions of the complaint arguably seeking non-litigation related damages. If plaintiffs in fact seek, and can prove, aggravation of the incompetent plaintiff’s illness by virtue of the hospital’s negligence in not preventing him from setting the fire, recovery is available under well-settled principles, recognized by Mr. Justice Flaherty. However, if it is later determined, as suggested by Mr. Justice Nix in his concurring and dissenting opinion, that the only damages plaintiffs suffered as a result of the hospital’s negligence were related to the civil and criminal actions brought against their ward, I would deny recovery as a matter of law. I believe this is implied by the majority. On demurrer, however, I am unwilling to read the complaint as limited solely to damages flowing from the litigation.