Court Opinion

ID: 9753685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:22:27.785761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:40.231492
License: Public Domain

*253Justice NEWMAN,
concurring.
I write separately to emphasize the inequity of the statutory scheme concerning the release of psychiatric records as applied to the present situation. Jerilyn Zane (Zane) was kidnapped and, thereafter, physically and sexually assaulted over a period of three days by Ronald Anderson (Anderson); as a result, Zane sustained severe physical injuries.1 Appellee and Anderson met while both were undergoing treatment at Friends Hospital. Presently, Zane maintains that Friends Hospital had failed to warn her about Anderson’s violent disposition.
The case brought forth by Zane is consistent -with Emerich v. Philadelphia Center for Human Development, 554 Pa. 209, 720 A.2d 1032, 1036 (1999), where this Court recognized that “a mental health care professional, under certain limited circumstances, owes a duty to warn a third party of threats of harm against that third party.” We further clarified our holding as follows:
[W]e find that in Pennsylvania, based upon the special relationship between a mental health professional and his patient, when the patient has communicated to the professional a specific and immediate threat of serious bodily injury against a specifically identified or readily identifiable third party and when the professional, determines, or should determine under the standards of the mental health profession, that his patient presents a serious danger of violence to the third party, then the professional bears a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect by warning the third party against such danger.
Id. at 1043. In reaching our conclusion, this Court observed that “the societal interests in the protection of this Commonwealth’s citizens from harm” outweigh, inter alia, “the impor*254tance of confidential communication between therapist and patient.” Id. at 1039, 1042-43.
It troubles me that the case brought by Zane, though it alleges a cause of action explicitly adopted by this Court, crumbles because Section 7111 of the Mental Health Procedures Act (MHPA), 50 P.S. § 7111, precluded access to Anderson’s mental health records that contain evidence as to whether Friends Hospital in fact breached its duty as set forth in Emerich. Unfortunately, because Anderson’s records are unreachable, we are left to accept the patently self-serving position of Friends Hospital that it did not violate its obligations to Zane.
This Court has long recognized that the state is obliged to protect its citizens from the mentally ill. See Emerich, 720 A.2d at 1039; In re J.S., 526 Pa. 418, 586 A.2d 909, 913 (1991); In re Hutchinson, 500 Pa. 152, 454 A.2d 1008, 1011 (1982). Further, as explained in my concurring and dissenting opinion in Emerich, I believe that once a specific threat of immediate and serious bodily harm to a particular person is articulated, “the public concern for notice of dangerous behavior to the person imperiled outweighs the patient’s privacy concerns.720 A.2d at 1048 (Newman, J., concurring and dissenting). Section 7111 does not take into account these matters and sets forth a bright line rule that protects only the interests of the patient. I do not believe that this should be the exclusive goal of the MHPA. This oversight in the statutory scheme is especially troubling as applied to the present circumstance, where the protection of the patient is no longer at issue and the privilege is asserted by the treating facility in an attempt to avoid a legitimate inquiry into its conduct. While I recognize the importance of the protections afforded by Section 7111,1 do not believe that the Legislature intended for Section 7111 to shield a hospital from liability for the tortious conduct of one its own patients.
Ultimately, however, Section 7111 does not provide an exception that would allow Zane or the trial judge to review Anderson’s mental records and I am, therefore, constrained by the unambiguous language of the statute. Accordingly, I am *255forced to agree that the Order issued by Judge Nitza Quinones-Alejandro fell within the “clearly erroneous” exception to the coordinate jurisdiction doctrine. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to voice my opposition to what I perceive is an unjust resolution of this matter.

. I recognize that these facts have not been proven by Zane. However, given the present procedural circumstances, we must accept them as alleged. See, e.g., Atcovitz v. Gulph Mills Tennis Club, Inc., 571 Pa. 580, 812 A.2d 1218, 1221 (2002) (reiterating that when considering an order granting summary judgment, ''[tjhe reviewing court must view the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party”).