Court Opinion

ID: 9606121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:47:16.497836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:33.031609
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
When the grant of summary judgment for the actual psychiatrist was before this court previously, this court held that the appellant’s affidavit was insufficient to demonstrate false imprisonment because there was no evidence of actual physical restraint by force or fear. Williams v. Smith, 179 Ga. App. 712 (348 SE2d 50) (1986). I agreed with that determination then and still agree with it, based on that initial affidavit. I would, however, have reached the opposite conclusion had the affidavit subsequently submitted by the appellant been before this court at that time.
In that second affidavit, quoted by the majority opinion, the appellant states that the psychiatrist specifically told her that she would be arrested and physically taken to a mental hospital if she tried to leave, and that other employees as well repeatedly told her that she could not leave the center. As noted by this court in Williams v. Smith, supra at 713, false imprisonment may occur without actual restraint; the requisite element of restraint may arise out of any acts, gestures, or words that induce a reasonable apprehension that force will be used to restrain. I cannot agree with the majority opinion that the appellant’s second affidavit does not establish a factual issue over whether any acts, gestures, or words of the center’s employees induced a reasonable apprehension that force would be used to keep her there if she tried to leave. The fact that she eventually mustered the courage to try, and actually left without restraint, would not conclusively contradict her testimony that for a period of time she remained at the center solely out of fear of being restrained.
The majority opinion correctly concludes that under the doctrine of res judicata, the psychiatric center has no derivative liability stemming from the psychiatrist’s acts or words, regardless of the additional facts recounted in the appellant’s second affidavit. However, there is no basis for similarly barring a claim against the center based on the acts of the other employees. The majority opinion claims that in Williams v. Smith, supra, this court held that the appellant was not falsely imprisoned at the Summit Psychiatric Centers. However, the holding in that case was not quite so expansive; this court merely held that the psychiatrist was entitled to summary judgment on this *269claim. Summit’s liability was not addressed. Again, I agree that Williams v. Smith, supra, eliminates the psychiatrist as one of the bases for Summit’s derivative liability, but it does not similarly eliminate the acts of Summit’s other employees as a basis for liability.
Decided November 24, 1987
Rehearing denied December 11, 1987
Adele P. Grubbs, for appellant.
Terrance C. Sullivan, Timothy H. Bendin, for appellee.
Especially where psychiatric matters are concerned, mental freedom often goes hand in hand with physical liberty. “ ‘A psychiatrist who accepts as his “patient” a person who does not wish to be his patient, defines him as a “mentally ill” person, then incarcerates him in an institution, bars his escape from the institution and from the role of mental patient, and proceeds to “treat” him against his will — such a psychiatrist, I maintain, creates “mental illness” and “mental patients.” He does so in exactly the same way as the white man who sailed for Africa, captured the Negro, brought him to America in shackles, and then sold him as if he were an animal, created slavery and slaves.’ Ibid., p. 169. ‘Involuntary Mental Hospitalization,’ Thomas Szasz.” Shirley v. State, 149 Ga. App. 194, 196 (253 SE2d 787) (1979).
The appellant’s complaint may sound somewhat far-fetched, but that is no reason for this court to deny the proper effect of the appellant’s evidence. Her second affidavit creates an issue of fact over whether she was falsely imprisoned by the employees of the psychiatric center, a factual issue that should be resolved by a jury.
Accordingly, I must respectfully dissent.