Court Opinion

ID: 9675148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:43:13.489127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:31.809710
License: Public Domain

STORCKMAN, Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot concur in the opinion’s holding that a verdict for the defendants should have been directed. Admittedly, the question is a close one but, as I view the evidence, inferences of negligence might reasonably be drawn from it. In such case, the question should be submitted to the jury for its determination.
The defendants were trained in the ways and impulses of the mentally ill. They knew that the plaintiff in his condition might undertake to commit suicide. They knew that the plaintiff wanted to leave the hospital and go home and that he was disappointed when told he could not do so. It follows that the defendants were charged with knowledge that the plaintiff in his *95mental condition and having the desire to go home might attempt to escape from the ward in the hospital. Whether he was intent on suicide or merely wanted to go home, the defendants knew that he was likely to injure himself in his attempt to get away or after he got outside. While the patients were not confined to their room, the ward doors were kept locked and, unlike some of the cases cited, it was not a part of the therapy to let these patients out-of-doors.
It is in this background of knowledge that we must determine if the defendant doctor used due care. 11 A.L.R.2d 751, 782-783. Was it due care to use the exit opposite the plaintiff's room and in full view of the patient under these circumstances? It seems to me that it could reasonably be said that the doctor should not have exposed the patient to this temptation to escape; he should have used the elevator instead. If for any reason the doctor could not use the elevator but had to leave through the door, he could have directed an attendant to be with the patient on some pretext while the doctor was leaving.
But putting that aside, I further think that reasonable minds might vary as to whether the doctor used due care in the manner in which he went through and attempted to close the door.
By his own testimony, the doctor knew that the patient was in full view of the door about fifteen feet away. The patient was disappointed that he could not leave the hospital and here was the invitation of a door being opened. Turning his back on the patient even briefly was a further invitation. The doctor knew that the patient, about fifteen feet away, could be at the door in two or three bounds. The care required must be commensurate with the risk of danger presented.
One of the decisive evidenitary facts is that the doctor turned his back and did not look at the patient again after he unlocked the door and passed through, although the glass panels in the door permitted this to be done.
The doctor testified that he placed his-back or shoulder against the door. To me this seems to be an unusual, awkward and time-consuming way of getting through and1 closing the door. The normal and certainly the preferred way in this situation would have been for the doctor to unlock and push the door open with one hand, step through and turn quickly and, as he withdrew his key, start to push the door shut with his other hand and then use both hands. Not only would this appear to be a quicker way of getting through the door, but it would also have the advantage that the doctor would be facing the patient for all but a brief instant. The fact that the doctor’s back was turned and continued to be turned would further tend to encourage the patient to bolt through the door. Facing the patient would discourage the attempt as well as put the doctor on notice and prepare him to resist the attempt to escape.
The jury did not have to believe that the reason the doctor used his back or shoulder in closing the door was because the door with its automatic closer could be shut faster by that means. An automatic closer that could not be forced as quickly by facing the door and pushing with the hands would certainly be out of adjustment. The jury might very well disbelieve that part of the doctor’s testimony and conclude that he had taken his mind off of the patient and was using his hands to put away his keys or was preoccupied with something else.
Also a jury might reasonably find that the doctor did not observe his patient as carefully as he thought he did before he unlocked the door as well as that he delayed unduly in passing through the exit and closing the door. Having in mind the doctor’s expert knowledge, the circumstances convince me that a jury could reasonably find the doctor negligent in one of these respects. There may be other reasons for submitting the case but to me these are sufficient. Therefore I dissent.