Court Opinion

ID: 9694483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:43:46.065112+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:02.378745
License: Public Domain

MONTEMURO, Judge
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the trial court’s determination that Farview State Hospital provides the least restrictive environment for rehabilitating appellant was not against the weight of the evidence. I must dissent, however, from what I believe to be the majority’s disregard of the plain meaning of the statute concerning court-ordered involuntary treatment.
Title 50 Pa.S.A. § 7304(e)(4) states: “The hearing shall be public unless it is requested to be private by the person or his counsel.” The definition of unless is “except on the condition that: under any other circumstance that.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary at 1292, 1986. Given this definition, I read the statute to mean that if a person requests a private hearing, then the hearing should be private; there is no language contained in the statute which supports the majority’s conclusion that it is within the discretion of the hearing judge to decide whether the hearing will be public. In the instant case, appellant and *102his counsel expressed appellant’s desire for a private hearing; therefore, it should have been private.
For support, the majority relies on the recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court case of Matter of Seegrist, 517 Pa. 568, 539 A.2d 799 (1988). There, Sylvia Seegrist was before the court for an informal conference conducted pursuant to Section 303 of the Mental Health Procedures Act. Under that section, an individual can only be involuntarily committed for up to twenty days, and unlike Section 7304 applicable herein, there is no provision for a private proceeding. In explaining why Ms. Seegrist’s request for a private conference was correctly denied, the supreme court stated:
None of Appellant’s medical records was presented as evidence of her mental condition. No information was disclosed which intruded upon Appellant’s privacy, and no testimony was given in violation of the psychotherapist-patient privilege. Accounts of Appellant’s psychiatric history, containing far more detail than evidence adduced at the commitment hearing, had already been published in the local newspapers. Thus, because the court would not have been protecting any privacy right of Appellant, by closing the hearing, the decision to make it an open hearing was correct.
Seegrist, supra, 517 Pa. at 576, 539 A.2d at 803 (emphasis supplied).
By contrast to Seegrist, in the instant case appellant’s medical records were presented as evidence and were discussed by psychiatrists involved in appellant’s case. See N.T., August 25,1989 at 44-45, 53; N.T., October 2,1989 at 6-7. The evidence about appellant’s medical and psychiatric history was detailed and extensive, covering more than what the newspapers previously had access to. Moreover, the circumstances were different, as Seegrist merely involved a current placement, whereas the instant case involved a petition by Farview State Hospital for appellant to be transferred to another institution, to which he would be committed for at least a year. It was not appellant’s first commitment proceeding; thus, a great deal of information from the Farview doctors about appellant’s progress was *103brought to the court’s attention. Appellant’s privacy rights were infringed upon in this case because appellant’s attorney was forced to call appellant’s doctors to the witness stand and violate the physician-patient privilege in front of community members and the press.
The majority analyzed the factors that the trial court considered when deciding to hold a public hearing, but the analysis is not convincing. The majority states that “the only reason advanced by appellant herein was that the hearing would involve confidential medical testimony about his mental illness. In any hearing under the Mental Health Procedures Act, the evidence is likely to involve at least some confidential medical testimony.” Majority Opinion at 99. As the statute’s language and the supreme court’s interpretation indicate, this is exactly what the legislature wanted to protect against, that is, allowing the public to hear confidential testimony regarding the deeply personal details of the individual’s mental illness.
The majority quote from Seegrist, supra, 517 Pa. at n. 15, 539 A.2d at 802 n. 15, is both incomplete and dicta. The entire note 15 reads:
While on its face, Section 304(e)(4) does appear mandatory at first reading, due caution is necessary. If a private hearing is “requested,” this does not necessarily mean, as a matter of verbal logic, that the request must be honored. A recent trial court decision in Lehigh County apparently held Section 304(e)(4) was discretionary and not mandatory. See, In re Fitzinger____ We express no definitive view on this issue, however.
Id. In the main text of the Seegrist opinion the Court also states that “[w]e express no view on the question of whether Section 304(e)(4) is mandatory or not____” Id. It is incorrect, then, to infer that Seegrist stands for the proposition that Section 304(e)(4) gives the trial court discretion to hold a public hearing despite a person’s request for a private one.
Furthermore, the Court in Seegrist recognized that “the scheme adopted by the legislature here envisions that more *104extensive procedural or ‘due process’ protections will apply as the amount of time a person may be deprived of liberty increases above a bare minimum.” Id,., 517 Pa. at 574, 539 A.2d at 802. Sylvia Seegrist was only being involuntarily committed for 20 days whereas the appellant in the current case was having a formal adjudicatory hearing for a commitment of one year. Appellant’s interests in a closed hearing and more procedural rights, then, are greater than Seegrist’s because his potential loss of liberty is much longer. Holding a private hearing would be consistent with the supreme court’s analysis of the Mental Health Procedures Act and its scheme of increasing protections as individuals face longer commitments.
For support, the majority relies on its assertion that appellant placed the issue of his mental illness before the public in his criminal trial, and therefore the public was already aware of his diagnosis. This factor is less than determinative, however, as the criminal hearing was over a year before the instant civil proceeding, and at the criminal trial appellant had no choice about pleading as he did. When appellant acted, he was insane, and he pled as such. Further, if this were the test, then in any case in which a defendant pleads insanity, he or she will lose the right to have a closed hearing under the Mental Health Procedures Act. Such an interpretation would render § 304(e)(4) meaningless. During a year at Farview, appellant underwent treatment and made some progress, about which doctors testified. This new information, in all its detail, was not known to the public, nor was it the public’s business to know.
The majority also relies on the trial court’s finding that the victims and neighbors had a legitimate interest and concern about appellant’s possible return to the neighborhood. This argument is unpersuasive. The record is clear that appellant is severely ill: his illness was, in fact, judicially determined. It is highly doubtful that he will ever leave an institutional setting, much less return to the neighborhood. See N.T., August 25, 1989 at 41, 54, 57; N.T., *105October 2, 1989 at 73 (doctors testify that it is unlikely that appellant will be able to leave hospital setting).
Finally, the majority examines the fact that only some of the doctors that testified had a physician-patient relationship with the patient, while the others merely testified about the facilities and programs at various institutions. The number of witnesses breaking the physician-patient privilege is irrelevant; for even one to have done so violates the individual’s privacy rights.
Individuals who are, and must be, shut away in mental institutions have little freedom and little self esteem. The statute permits the court system to provide these people a measure of dignity. While there may be some public interest in allowing the public to sit in on appellant’s hearing, I believe that our Legislature has made the determination, codified in § 7304(e)(4), that in cases as the instant one, the choice as to whether the hearing will be public belongs to the individual, not to the court. Appellant and his attorney expressed his desire for a private hearing because they felt that a public hearing would be embarrassing and counterproductive to his therapy. The public does not need to know what drug appellant is on or what secure institution he is living in. As Justice McDermott stated in his dissenting opinion in Seegrist, “[t]here is no reason, beyond the person’s own request, why the public should be invited to sit beside their bed and overhear their physicians,” 517 Pa. at 578, 539 A.2d at 804 (McDermott, J., dissenting).
For the above reasons, I dissent.