23 A.D.2d 898 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1965
The State appeals from a judgment of the Court of Claims in the amount of $22,334.27 for the wrongful death, by suicide, of the claimant’s son while he was a patient at the Rockland State Hospital. On December 25, 1958, the attendant in charge of the ward in which the decedent was a patient found the door of the bathroom section of the ward closed. On entering he found the decedent slumped against a radiator under a window with a shoelace around his neck attached to a cord which was attached to the window. The decedent died on January 6, 1959. A supervising psychiatrist of the hospital stated that the cause of death was “ cerebral edema and cerebral congestion due to cerebral anoxia due to strangulation by hanging.” In September of 1957 the decedent became depressed and was admitted voluntarily to Bellevue Hospital. About two weeks later he was transferred to Rockland State Hospital. In March of 1958 he was released on convalescent status but was returned on July 3, 1958, after his sister reported that he had attempted suicide by taking