21 A.D.2d 909 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1964
In a wrongful death action to recover damages arising out of the alleged negligence of the defendant hospital in failing to prevent the suicide of plaintiff’s wife, the defendant appeals from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Nassau County, entered December 20, 1963, after trial, upon a jury’s verdict of $65,000 in the plaintiff’s favor. Judgment reversed on the law and the facts, without costs, and complaint dismissed, without costs. Defendant hospital, to which the decedent was admitted on Sunday evening, January 4, 1959, specializes in the treatment of the mentally ill. On the morning of January 7, 1959 the decedent committed suicide by hanging herself from a clothes pole in a closet of a room she shared with another patient; she used her scarf as a rope. The jury could have found that the suicide occurred during a 15-minute period when the decedent was unobserved by the defendant’s employees. Decedent was depressed, anxious, moody and confused. There was some evidence of auditory hallucinations; there was no indication of suicidal tendencies. Decedent had once agreed with her husband that it would be better if he took from her a paring knife with which she was peeling potatoes. Even plaintiff’s expert concluded that her use of the phrase “only God can help me” was inconsistent with suicidal tendencies. Dr. Rolo,