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dollar;1.2M Verdict Overturned in Hospital Suicide Suit

An Illinois appeals court has vacated a $1.2 million verdict and ordered a new trial for the defendants in the case of a woman who committed suicide while a patient at Cook County Hospital.

The appellate panel said the trial court erred when it refused to allow the jury to decide whether the defendants could have foreseen the woman's suicide because foreseeability was an essential element in proving causation.

Louise Hooper was a patient in the intensive care unit of Cook County Hospital, suffering from an unrelated physical illness Dec. 5, 1997, when she developed symptoms of a form of delirium known as ICU psychosis.

Psychiatric nurse Betty Shamley examined her and found she was suffering from "paranoid ideation," according to the opinion.

Shamley conferred by telephone with Dr. Deepak Kapoor, the attending psychiatrist, and they decided to administer an antipsychotic medication and move Hooper to a quieter ward, the opinion explains.

At 3:55 the next morning, Hooper was found hanging unconscious from her knotted hospital gown in a nearby bathroom. She could not be revived, the court said, and later died.

Hooper's husband, Kenneth, sued Cook County, Kapoor and a hospital nurse, Glenda Edmond-Nolla.

At trial Hooper's expert testified that patients suffering from ICU psychosis are known to be at risk for hurting themselves, including suicide. A defense expert testified that Hooper acted intentionally, not out of delirium or accident, when she hanged herself and thus her suicide was not reasonably foreseeable.

During the jury instruction conference, the defendants asked to submit this question to the jury: "Prior to the death of Louise Hooper, was it reasonably foreseeable that she would commit suicide or act in a self-destructive manner on or before Dec. 6, 1997?"

The judge refused to allow the question after the plaintiff objected. The case went to the jury, which returned a verdict in Hooper's favor, awarding him $1.2 million.

The defendants appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court, which reversed and remanded for a new trial.

The defendants argued that the omission of the question on foreseeability prejudiced them and denied them a fair trial. If the jury had determined that Louise Hooper's suicide was not foreseeable, it would have had to enter judgment for the defense, they claimed.

The plaintiff contended that the question was improper because it focused only on one aspect of proximate cause while ignoring other elements, such as the defendants' negligent care in failing to prevent a psychotic patient from engaging in unpredictable acts.

The appeals court sided with the defendants.

Foreseeability is the factual finding necessary to establish legal cause, the panel held.

"Without foreseeability, legal cause cannot be established. Without legal cause, the proximate cause cannot be established. Without proximate cause there can be no negligence," the judges said.

The interrogatory was in the proper form and should not have been refused by the trial court. Therefore, the defendants were prejudiced and entitled to a new trial, the appellate panel concluded.