Court Opinion

ID: 9861631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:14:34.370946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:44.261079
License: Public Domain

Shea, J.
(dissenting). I agree with the majority that the interest of the state in preventing the plaintiff from dismembering himself is sufficient to justify his confinement, if it is necessary for that purpose. Such an offensive act is not exempt from governmental prohibition merely because it may be performed in the name of religion. Similarly, although in times less skeptical he might have been venerated as a saint or a prophet, the plaintiff gains no privilege before the law because his mental disease is manifested by delusions of religious rather than secular content.
Further confinement of the plaintiff as a mentally ill person under the statutory definition is warranted only if he is “afflicted by mental disease to such extent that he requires care and treatment for his own welfare or the welfare of others or of the community.” General Statutes § 17-176. The diagnosis of dementia praecox, paranoid type, would not in itself require that the plaintiff be held in a mental hospital, as the trial court recognized. The extent of affliction from mental disease must be such *66that care and treatment are required for his welfare or that of other persons.
The opinion of the psychiatrist that there is a possibility that the plaintiff might cut off his right foot is the sole basis for the conclusion that further confinement of the plaintiff is needed. The finding states also that “the plaintiff is not dangerous to anyone other than himself, and the latter danger is not a definite thing, in that it is only a possibility in the plaintiff’s mind.”
Almost anything can happen and is therefore possible. Consequently, some evaluation of the likelihood of a future occurrence has usually been insisted upon for judicial consideration. “Mere possibilities or suppositions will not sustain a legitimate inference of the existence of a fact nor can it be drawn by conjecture only.” General Petroleum Products, Inc. v. Merchants Trust Co., 115 Conn. 50, 58, 160 A. 296.
It is not suggested that the statutory criterion would authorize confinement of the plaintiff only in the event that the likelihood of self-mutilation amounts to a probability. Nor is it expected that the chances -of such an occurrence can be forecast with mathematical precision. Nevertheless, to warrant a conclusion under the statute that the welfare of - the plaintiff requires continued treatment in a mental institution, the risk of self-inflicted mayhem on his part ought to be substantially greater than for normal citizens engaged in the many hazardous pursuits of modern life. Perhaps the subordinate facts found, relating to acts performed by the plaintiff twenty years ago, would support such an inference, if it had been drawn by the trial court. A court of review, however, is limited to the finding, and here it is explicitly stated that the need *67for confinement is based solely on the possibility that the plaintiff may harm himself upon release.
As between the possibility that the plaintiff may amputate his foot and the certainty that, under this judgment, he must remain incarcerated against his will indefinitely, I choose the former.
I would remand the case to the trial court for an additional finding or for a new trial if the evidence upon the point involved is insufficient to find the pertinent facts.
Accordingly, I dissent.