The good part about the opinion in this psychiatric-malpractice case is that even though it’s from Division One the standard-of-review section takes up only a footnote. But then there’s the rest of it to deal with.

Defendants provide psychiatric care. Maudsley was taken to them for evaluation after acting strangely at ASU.  The examining psychiatrist recognized him as a psychotic but before admitting him allowed him to go across the street to a hospital emergency room to take care of a foot injury. Maudsley promised to come back but, naturally, he didn’t; that night he was hit while crossing a street and eventually died. Turned out he was already a patient of this psychiatric organization, apparently under its contract with the county to provide indigent care, and that it had on the same day filed a petition for court-ordered evaluation of him. The doctor who evaluated him on the ASU visit didn’t know that and purported to think that he was a “voluntary patient” (the evidence was in conflict; the person who brought Maudsley in filled out the proper forms and testified to being told that enough had been done to admit him).

His parents sued. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that they had no doctor-patient relationship with Maudsley and thus no duty to him. The trial court granted it.

The Court of Appeals first deals briefly with a few niggling details, such as whether there was evidence of proximate cause (the court gets past that by taking an expansive view of an affidavit that doesn’t appear to have been written with the subject in mind) and the fact that it doesn’t really know the nature and relationship of the corporate defendants (it blames that on them and decides, essentially, to ignore the problem).

The court eventually concludes that there was a question of fact about a doctor-patient relationship.

But what it really wants to do, and so what it does first, is to hold that defendants owed Maudsley a duty of care as a matter of public policy resulting from certain mental-health statutes. The analysis isn’t particularly convincing, consisting of a recital of several statutes followed by a somewhat abrupt conclusion about their supposed public-policy implications. But the upshot seems to be that outfits authorized to conduct mental-health screening evaluations (as defendants were) owe a doctor-patient duty to everyone who comes through the door.

(link to opinion)

This one of those occasional cases in which the Court of Appeals uses its discretion to consider a matter not raised below.

Duncan sued Progressive’s insured for a car accident but he died before she could serve him. She got the probate registrar to appoint a special administrator solely to accept service, telling the court that defendant had no heirs. She served him but the defendant’s estate did not appear so she took default. Progressive intervened to contest the sufficiency of service. It moved to dismiss the negligence case, arguing that service was no good because the insured did have heirs (whom Duncan had never contacted) and that the appointment was improper for other reasons. The accident-case judge granted the motion.

The Court of Appeals holds that the motion to dismiss was an improper collateral attack on the probate order appointing the special administrator. Duncan hadn’t raised the issue in the trial court. The appellate court decided to review it anyway because an “issue involving orderly judicial administration is a matter of statewide public importance” and this was a pure issue of law on undisputed facts.

The court quotes a case to the effect that “a decree in the probate court has . . . the conclusiveness inherent in a judgment of a common law court and, therefore, may not be collaterally attacked.” This is interesting since the Marvin Johnson case later said essentially that the probate court is a common-law court (we’ve expressed our feelings about Johnson before.) In any event, even if there were some defect in the appointment the place to attack it was the probate court (as Progressive had started to do and then, for reasons not explained, switched tactics).

LATER EDIT: The court issued an amended version of this opinion on September 27, 2011. The amendment adds a new paragraph — now no. 18 — in which it concludes, addressing another Progressive argument, that the rule against collateral attack also applies to “orders that are not final judgments in the traditional sense,” citing some out-of-state probate cases. The court also took the opportunity to edit the opinion a bit, omitting a few words here and adding a citation there.

(link to opinion)

An attempt to use the Victims’ Bill of Rights to prevent depositions in a civil case.

Defendant was sued for molesting girls named in the caption and in the opening of the opinion but thereafter referred to as Crime Victims. (Reminds me of when people refer to the guy who “allegedly” shot Judge Roll; for many the use of labels is a process that need never involve the brain.) Defendant’s Lawyer withdrew because his bills didn’t get paid. Defendant then found money somewhere and settled the case for a judgment that said $2.2 million but was really for $111,000 plus a third of the recovery in Defendant’s malpractice case against Lawyer. Defendant then sued Lawyer (for reasons unclear, apparently something to do with discovery). Lawyer’s counsel subpoenaed Victims for deposition; they moved for protective order on the basis of being victims. The trial judge prohibited questions about the molestation but otherwise allowed their depos.  They took special action.

The Victims Bill of Rights prohibits depositions and discovery by or for the defendant. “We start (and end) our analysis with the language” the court says  (but of course doesn’t really mean – it starts by explaining at length that statutes and the constitution mean what they say). Lawyer wasn’t acting by or for Defendant. (Daughters apparently tried to argue that he really was, that their dispute was phony, maybe just a ruse to take a prohibited deposition; the court disagrees in a factual finding disguised as a footnote. Daughters presumably failed to explain why they contracted to buy a third of a phony dispute. The various ethical issues in this case are interesting but unremarked.)

Victims also objected, under Rule 26(C), that the depositions would be embarrassing and oppressive. The trial court’s limitations in response to that were within his discretion.

The court declines to rule on whether the Victim’s Bill of Rights applies “beyond the end of a criminal case.”

(link to opinion)