Albright v. Abington Memorial Hospital

18 Pa. D. & C.4th 617, 1993 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 201
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Montgomery County
DecidedApril 26, 1993
Docketno. 89-18657
StatusPublished

This text of 18 Pa. D. & C.4th 617 (Albright v. Abington Memorial Hospital) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Montgomery County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Albright v. Abington Memorial Hospital, 18 Pa. D. & C.4th 617, 1993 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 201 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1993).

Opinion

LAWRENCE, J.,

This is John W. Albright’s appeal of the court’s order of February 17, 1993 granting summary judgment to one of two named defendants. The background facts of the case are as follows:

John W. Albright, as executor of the estate of Elizabeth Jean Albright and individually in his own right, commenced a wrongful death and survival action against Abington Memorial Hospital and Montgomery County Emergency Service on or about November 3, 1989, for their failure to compel his mentally ill wife’s attendance at outpatient treatment, which purportedly resulted in her death. Mrs. Albright had been committed by court order to defendant’s facility for treatment due to her mental condition. Thereafter she was instructed by way of court order to continue outpatient treatment at Abington Hospital for a 90-day period. She attended the first two required treatment sessions but did not attend her third appointment and, on December 23, 1988, allegedly died as a result of a fire she started in her bedroom at home.

Plaintiff initially attempted to plead gross, willful and wanton misconduct on the part of defendant. As a result of defendant’s preliminary objections to plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages, all references to “reckless,” “wanton,” “willful,” “gross” or “outrageous” conduct were stricken by order of June 6, 1990. Plaintiff filed an amended complaint, to which defendant filed preliminary objections, which the court granted in part on December [619]*6193, 1990. As a result of this court’s orders of June 1990 and December 3,1990, plaintiff was left with a complaint in simple negligence.

Defendant filed an answer which contained new matter. In its answer, it specifically denied all averments of negligence and other misconduct contained in the complaint. In its new matter, it set forth that it is immune from suit in this case in that it qualifies for the partial immunity conferred upon a facility by section 114 of the Mental Health Procedures Act, 50 P.S. §7114.

Defendant subsequently filed the instant summary judgment motion on the ground that defendant was immune from suit as a matter of law under the act. It argues that when this court struck the allegations of “reckless,” “wanton,” “willful” and “grossly negligent” behavior, it effectively left plaintiff only with allegations which were within the immunity provided to the defendant under the act. This court granted summary judgment, and plaintiff now appeals.

DISCUSSION

A motion for summary judgment may properly be granted only if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Pa.R.C.P. 1035. Under this standard, summary judgment was properly granted.

The immunity provisions of the act, 50 P.S. §7114(a), provide:

“In the absence of willful misconduct or gross negligence, a county administrator, a director of a facility, a physician, a peace officer or any other authorized person who participates in a decision that a person be examined [620]*620or treated under this act, or that a person be discharged, or placed under partial hospitalization, outpatient care of leave of absence, or that the restraint upon such person be otherwise reduced, or a county administrator or otherwise authorized person who denies an application for voluntary treatment or for involuntary emergency examination and treatment, shall not be civilly or criminally liable for such decision or for any of its consequences.”

Although plaintiff disputes defendant’s status as a facility as defined in section 7103 of the act, the court properly took judicial notice of the fact that defendant is a “mental health establishment, hospital, clinic, institution, center, day care center, base service unit, community health center, or part thereof, that provides for the diagnosis, treatment, care or rehabilitation of mentally ill persons, whether as outpatients or inpatients.” 50 P.S. §7103. As a community mental health center, defendant is entitled to partial immunity conferred by section 7114. Farago v. Sacred Heart General Hospital, 522 Pa. 410, 562 A.2d 300 (1989).

Turning to plaintiff’s first allegation of error, he asserts that the determination of whether an act or failure to act constitutes gross negligence is always for the jury.1 This is not accurate. It is an issue that may be removed from consideration by a jury and decided as a matter of law where the case is entirely free from doubt and there is no possibility that a reasonable jury could find gross negligence. Bloom v. DuBois Regional Medical Center, 409 Pa. Super. 83, 597 A.2d 671 (1991). It is important to note that notwithstanding that the court struck the “buzz words,” i.e., “gross negligence” from the com[621]*621plaint in ruling on the preliminary objections, the motion for summary judgment was properly granted because the facts as pled in the complaint were incapable of giving rise to an inference of gross negligence.2

The distinction between ordinary negligence and gross negligence was recently discussed:

“[W]e are still without clear guidance as to what the legislature might have intended by its use of the term ‘gross negligence’ in the Mental Health Procedures Act. Nowhere is the phrase defined either in the act itself or in the generally applicable definitions in our statutory law. It appears that the legislature intended to require that liability be premised on facts indicating more egregiously deviant conduct than ordinary carelessness, inadvertence, laxity or indifference. We hold that the legislature intended the term gross negligence to mean a form of negligence where the facts support substantially more than ordinary carelessness, inadvertence, laxity, or indifference. The behavior of the defendant must flagrant, grossly deviating from the ordinary standard of care. ” Bloom, supra, at 98-99, 597 A.2d at 679. (emphasis added)

A review of recent case law supports the position that a genuine issue of material fact which would tend to prove the existence of gross negligence has not been raised in this case. In Willett v. Evergreen Homes Inc., 407 Pa. Super. 141, 595 A.2d 164 (1991), alloc. denied, 600 A.2d 539 (1991), the court was called upon to decide whether appellees/defendants, a family counseling center and two of its employees, were exempt from the immunity that attached under section 4603 of the act, applicable [622]*622to non-profit organizations, in a suit against them for the drowning death in the bathtub of a residential facility for mentally retarded individuals where the plaintiff’s decedent was residing.3 Appellant/plaintiff contended that because the conduct of the appellees rose to the level of gross negligence, they were not immune and the trial court erred in granting summary judgment as to them. In evaluating the allegations made against the appellees/employees, the court stated:

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Related

Bloom v. DuBois Regional Medical Center
597 A.2d 671 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1991)
Farago v. Sacred Heart General Hospital
562 A.2d 300 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1989)
Rhines v. Herzel
392 A.2d 298 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1978)
Willett v. Evergreen Homes, Inc.
595 A.2d 164 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1991)

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Bluebook (online)
18 Pa. D. & C.4th 617, 1993 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 201, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/albright-v-abington-memorial-hospital-pactcomplmontgo-1993.