The Warshawsky Law Firm represents a client who was wrongly placed on a “psych hold” in the Emergency Room at Albany Medical Center after she presented with routine complaints of insomnia and anxiety. Instead of giving her individualized care appropriate to the circumstances, the treating physicians (mainly inexperienced residents) looked up her past medical history, saw that she had been previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and then interpreted everything she said and did in light of this dehumanizing label. As a result, the first-year resident handling her case decided the client was “unsafe” for discharge. The client was detained in the ER for more than 24 hours, and forcibly injected with Zyprexa, a powerful “antipsychotic” medication with potentially serious side effects, before being released after the consulting psychiatrist agreed she was not a danger to herself or others.
As we alleged in the complaint:
Plaintiff’s detention and treatment violated her rights under New York Mental Hygiene Law § 9.39, which authorizes the emergency involuntary admission of a psychiatric patient only where there is a “substantial risk of physical harm” to the patient or others. Here, as demonstrated by the medical records, whatever mental health problems Plaintiff may have been experiencing, there was no evidence that Plaintiff presented any danger of physical harm to herself or others. Plaintiff was detained against her will based on the erroneous medical observations and conclusions of Emergency Department staff, who failed to obtain a Psychiatry consult until approximately 22 hours after Plaintiff first was detained. Once Plaintiff was seen by Psychiatry, she was determined – correctly – to have “normal” mental functioning and not to be a danger to herself or others, and she was allowed to go home. Even without the Psychiatry consult, Emergency Department staff should have known that Plaintiff did not pose a “substantial risk of physical harm” to herself or others, as required by the Mental Hygiene Law for an emergency involuntary admission.
The case was filed in August 2020 in Albany Supreme Court. In March 2023, after substantial discovery, the hospital moved for summary judgment on the grounds that its treatment of the client met the applicable standard of care. We opposed the motion on the grounds that “the objective information contained in the medical records – as opposed to the conclusory and unsupported labels that Defendant’s doctors slapped on [Plaintiff] – does not show that [Plaintiff’s] mental health issues rose to the level of seriousness or dangerousness necessary to justify overriding her fundamental civil rights and subjecting her to involuntary hospitalization and psychiatric treatment . . . .” Our case is supported by the expert testimony of a highly experienced psychiatrist, who opines that the ER doctors breached the standard of care and violated the Mental Hygiene Law in this case.
On October 6, 2023, the Supreme Court (Hon. James H. Ferreira) denied the hospital’s summary judgment motion, finding that “plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence to rebut defendant’s claim of privilege and that its medical treatment complied with accepted standards of care. In other words, there is a material question of fact as to whether defendant complied with the MHL in detaining plaintiff . . . .”
We look forward to presenting our client’s case to a jury, and holding the hospital accountable for violating her rights. We also hope that this case serves as a precedent for other mental health patients who are wrongly detained by doctors who fail to respect their autonomy, dignity, and civil rights.