Involuntary Psychiatric Hold: Lawsuit Against Nurses Dismissed
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
April 1998
Quick Summary: There were no grounds for a lawsuit against anyone, including the nurses who helped hold the patient for an emergency evaluation.
The police had probable cause to think the patient was a danger to herself when they brought her to the emergency room.
The emergency room physicians diagnosed her as depressive and suicidal and believed she qualified for involuntary detention. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FOURTH CIRCUIT (MARYLAND), 1998.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Maryland) ruled recently that nurses are not to be held liable for helping to hold a patient involuntarily just because the emergency psychiatric evaluation says the patient was not a danger to self.If the proper procedures are followed, nurses who participate in holding a person for psychiatric evaluation are not legally liable in a civil lawsuit, the court said.
The patient’s estranged husband called the police to report what he said he interpreted as a suicide threat. The police went out. The patient was drunk, had been crying and had some bottles of pills on the table. They took her to the emergency room to be held involuntarily for an emergency psychiatric evaluation.
The psychiatrist who examined her within the short time frame required by law determined the patient was emotionally distraught, but not depressed or suicidal, so she was promptly released. The court dismissed her lawsuit.
S.P. v. City, 134 F. 3d 260 (4th Cir., 1998).