81 Conn. App. 347 | Conn. App. Ct. | 2004
Opinion
The issue in this wrongful death action is whether a psychiatrist and a psychologist have a duty to warn their patient not to operate a motor vehicle after ingesting prescribed medication. The plaintiffs decedent was killed in a motor vehicle collision that was caused by the defendants’ patient who had fallen asleep while operating her vehicle. We conclude, as a matter of law, under the facts of this case, that the defendants had no duty to warn the patient not to operate her motor vehicle for the benefit of the decedent and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The plaintiff first brought a wrongful death action against the patient, a registered nurse. During her deposition, the patient revealed that she has a history of psychiatric illness and was being treated by the defendants. As a result of taking medicine that had been prescribed for her, the patient suffered sleep disturbances and was prone to fall asleep during the day. Thereafter, in 1999, the plaintiff commenced this wrongful death action against the defendants. When the pleadings were closed, the defendants filed separate motions for summary judgment with regard to the respective allegations of negligence against them. The court granted both motions, and the plaintiff appealed.
A motion for summary judgment shall be granted if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Practice Book § 17-49. A complaint sets forth the material facts at issue with respect to a
In his revised complaint, the plaintiff alleged in relevant part that his decedent was killed at approximately 2 p.m. on August 22, 1997, when the motor vehicle she was operating was struck head on by the motor vehicle that was operated by the patient, who had fallen asleep at the steering wheel. He also alleged that for a substantial period of time prior to the accident, the patient had suffered from severe psychiatric illness and was being treated by both of the defendants. The medicine that was prescribed for her illness disrupted her sleep and caused her to fall asleep during the day. Prior to the date of the accident, the patient knew that the medicine she was taking affected her behavior, muscle control and coordination. She also knew that as a result of taking her medicine, she was a poor driver, and she had questioned the psychologist about whether she should drive.
Furthermore, the complaint alleged that for a period of time before and including August 22,1997, the psychiatrist had a physician-patient relationship with the patient. The plaintiff alleged that the psychiatrist was negligent and careless in his treatment of the patient and that his treatment deviated from the standard of medical care in a number of ways in that, among other things, he failed to advise the patient that she was unable to operate a motor vehicle safely and failed to advise her that when she was operating a motor vehicle on the highway, she was a danger to herself. The plaintiff alleged that as a result of the psychiatrist’s negligence, the patient was allowed to operate her motor vehicle on the highway, thereby causing the collision and the decedent’s death.
With respect to the psychologist, the complaint made similar allegations about the accident, the patient, the
The complaint alleged that the psychologist was negligent and that her treatment of the patient deviated from the standard of care in that she failed to advise the patient that it was not safe to operate her motor vehicle, failed to consult with the patient’s physicians, including the psychiatrist, and failed to advise the patient of the risks of operating a motor vehicle on the highway when she knew or should have known that doing so exposed the patient and others to danger.
After the pleadings were closed, the defendants filed their motions for summary judgment.
The court granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment, stating first that it was reasonable to conclude that the defendants knew or should have known that the patient was at risk of falling asleep while operating her motor vehicle. The court ultimately concluded, however, that because there was no physician-patient relationship between the defendants and the decedent, they did not owe her a duty of care. Citing public policy on which our Supreme Court has relied,
Before we address the plaintiffs claims, we set forth the well established standard of review regarding motions for summary judgment. “In deciding a motion for summary judgment, the trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. . . . The party moving for summary judgment has the burden of showing the absence of any genuine issue of material fact and that the party is, therefore, entitled to judgment as a matter of law. . . . Our review of the trial court’s decision to grant the defendant’s motion for summary judgment is plenary. . . . On appeal, we must determine whether the legal conclusions reached by the trial court are legally and logically correct and whether they find support in the facts set out in the memorandum of decision of the trial court.” (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Gold v. Greenwich Hospital Assn., 262 Conn. 248, 253, 811 A.2d 1266 (2002). “The test is whether a party would be entitled to a directed verdict on the same facts.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Haesche v. Kissner, 229 Conn. 213, 217, 640 A.2d 89 (1994).
I
The plaintiffs first claim is that the court improperly concluded that the defendants did not owe his decedent
The plaintiffs argument of law “invokes the well established proposition that a tortfeasor is liable for all damages proximately caused by its negligence.” First Federal Savings & Loan Assn. of Rochester v. Charter Appraisal Co., 247 Conn. 597, 604, 724 A.2d 497 (1999). “To prevail on a negligence claim, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant’s conduct legally caused the injuries. . . . [Ljegal cause is a hybrid construct, the result of balancing philosophic, pragmatic and moral approaches to causation. The first component of legal cause is causation in fact. Causation in fact is the purest legal application of . . . legal cause. The test for cause in fact is, simply, would the injury have occurred were it not for the actor’s conduct. (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Paige v. St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church Corp., 250 Conn. 14, 24—25, 734 A.2d 85 (1999).
“Because actual causation, in theory, is virtually limitless, the legal construct of proximate cause serves to
“The nature of the duty, and the specific persons to whom it is owed, are determined by the circumstances surrounding the conduct of the individual. . . . Essential to determining whether a legal duty exists is the fundamental policy of the law that a tortfeasor’s responsibility should not extend to the theoretically endless consequences of the wrong. . . . Even where harm was foreseeable, [our Supreme Court] has found no duty when the nexus between a defendant’s negligence and the particular consequences to the plaintiff was too attenuated.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 605.
“[T]he test of proximate cause is whether the defendant’s conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiffs injuries. . . . Further, it is the plaintiff who bears the burden to prove an unbroken sequence of events that tied his injuries to the [defendant’s conduct]. . . . The existence of the proximate cause of an injury is determined by looking from the injury to the negligent act complained of for the necessary causal connection. . . . This causal connection must be based upon more than conjecture and surmise.” (Citations omitted; emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) Paige v. St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church
In the trial court and on appeal, the parties relied on failure to warn cases involving mental health or other health care providers. Because many of those cases are factually distinguishable from the one here,
In Haesche, without deciding whether the defendant manufacturer of an air rifle had a duty to provide an explicit warning, our Supreme Court determined that the nature of the warning was not the proximate cause of the plaintiff teenager’s injury. The Haesche victim suffered a serious injury to his eye when it was struck by a BB pellet from an air rifle while he and his friends were playing games. Id., 215. The plaintiffs brought a products liability action against several defendants, claiming that the warning on the box was inadequate because it did not specifically state that the gun could cause serious injuries to the eye. Id. The trial court concluded that the failure to provide that warning was not the proximate cause of the victim’s injury. Id., 219.
During his deposition, the defendant teenager who had shot the victim testified that he knew that a BB pellet could injure a person’s eye, that he purchased
Here, the patient knew without the benefit of a warning from the defendants that she was prone to falling asleep during the day, even when she was operating her motor vehicle. She knew that her driving was impaired. A registered nurse, she associated her sleep disturbance with the medicine she was taking for her mental illness. She questioned the psychologist about her ability to drive and was told that she had not operated her vehicle within the prescribed lane of travel. Those facts, of which the patient was aware, put her on notice that she was at risk when operating a motor vehicle on the highway. The patient was well aware of the substance of the warning the plaintiff claims the defendants had a duty to give her. We therefore conclude that the proximate cause of the decedent’s injuries was the patient’s operating her motor vehicle despite knowing that she was prone to falling asleep at the steering wheel, not the defendants’ failure to tell her not to drive.
We will not speculate to assume that had the defendants told the patient not to drive, she would have heeded the warning, as she chose to drive despite knowing that she had fallen asleep while driving on prior occasions. The defendants did not control the patient or her activities; see Ryan Transportation, Inc. v. M & G Associates, 266 Conn. 520, 526 n.7, 832 A.2d 1180 (2003); and responsibility for the patient’s poor judgment cannot be attributed to the defendants on the basis of their therapeutic relationship with her.
In coming to our conclusion, we are mindful that the facts of this case are tragic for everyone involved. We keenly are aware of the loss the plaintiff and his children have suffered. We note, however, that the plaintiffs loss has not gone wholly uncompensated. “[T]he fundamental policy purposes of the tort compensation system [are] compensation of innocent parties, shifting the loss to responsible parties or distributing it among appropriate entities, and deterrence of wrongful conduct . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Lodge v. Arett Sales Corp., 246 Conn. 563, 578-79, 717 A.2d 215 (1998).
For all of the foregoing reasons, the granting of the defendants’ motions for summary judgment was not improper, although it was done on other grounds.
II
The plaintiff also claims that it was improper for the court to grant the psychiatrist’s motion for summary judgment because he had failed to comply with certain of our rules of practice. Specifically, the plaintiff claims that the psychiatrist failed to comply with discovery requests and to file a statement of facts in support of his motion for summary judgment. Although we do not condone the psychiatrist’s failure to respond to discovery requests,* ******
There was no factual dispute that the psychiatrist did not have a physician-patient relationship with the
III
The plaintiffs next claim is that the court improperly rendered summary judgment by concluding that there were no genuine issues of material fact with respect to the psychologist. The basis of the plaintiffs claim is that because the psychologist at one time followed the patient in her vehicle, the psychologist assumed a duty to individuals who travel the highways. We disagree.
There appears to be no dispute that the psychologist at one time operated her motor vehicle behind that of the patient and determined that she did not stay within the prescribed lane of travel. There was no dispute that this event did not occur on the date of the accident in which the decedent was killed. There also was no dispute that the psychologist did not control the patient on the day in question or at any time.
The plaintiff relies on the legal principle that if one gratuitously undertakes a service that she has no duty to perform, she must act with reasonable care. See Coville v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 57 Conn. App. 275, 281-82, 748 A.2d 875, cert. granted on other grounds, 253 Conn. 919, 755 A.2d 213 (2000) (appeal withdrawn March 30, 2001). Two sections of the Restatement (Second) of Torts extend liability where a person by her
As we concluded in part I, the psychologist’s alleged failure to warn the patient not to operate her motor vehicle was too attenuated from the patient’s falling asleep at the steering wheel, which was the proximate cause of the decedent’s death, to impose a duty on the psychologist for the decedent’s benefit.
On the basis of our conclusion in part I, we need not address the plaintiffs remaining claims.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
The complaint also alleged with respect to both of the defendants the further consequences of the defendants’ negligence, primarily the death of the decedent and the related losses. Those allegations are not relevant to the defendants’ motions for summary judgment.
In their answers to the complaint, the defendants asserted special defenses, including that (1) the action was barred by the applicable statute of limitations and (2) they owed no duty of care to the decedent.
The court denied the motions for summary judgment on the basis of the statute of limitations special defense, concluding that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the plaintiff should have discovered the defendants’ alleged negligent conduct sooner, which was for the jury to determine. The court, however, concluded that General Statutes § 52-190a (b) did not apply to extend by ninety days the statute of limitations imposed by General Statutes § 52-584 because there was no physician-patient relationship between the decedent and the defendants.
See Jacoby v.Brinckerhoff, 250 Conn. 86, 97, 735 A.2d 347 (1999) (psychotherapist owed undivided loyalty to patient, not to patient’s former spouse); Zamstein v. Marvasti, 240 Conn. 549, 559, 692 A.2d 781 (1997) (mental health professional engaged to evaluate whether sexual abuse occurred owes no duty of care to alleged sexual abuser); Fraser v. United States, 236 Conn. 625, 627, 674 A.2d 811 (1996) (medical center had no duty to control outpatient to avoid injury to unidentifiable third persons); Evon v. Andrews, 211 Conn. 501, 507-508, 559 A.2d 1131 (1989) (municipal employees shielded by governmental immunity unless discrete person-imminent harm exception applies); Shore v. Stonington, 187 Conn. 147, 152, 444 A.2d 1379 (1982) (public versus private duty).
We agree with the plaintiffs position on appeal that the court mischaracterized the duty he alleged in his revised complaint. He did not allege that the defendants had a duty to wain his decedent or the class. He alleged that the defendants had a duty to warn the patient not to operate a motor vehicle to prevent injury to the members of an identifiable class. Nonetheless, we may uphold the court’s judgment “because it reached the right result, even if it did so for the wrong reason.” Kalas v. Cook, 70 Conn. App. 477, 485, 800 A.2d 553 (2002).
See footnote 4. See also Garamella v. New York Medical College, 23 F. Sup. 2d 167, 174-75 (D. Conn. 1998) (instructor had duty to protect patients of psychiatric resident who was admitted pedophile); Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425, 431, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334 (1976) (mental health provider had duty to wain of patient’s threat of harm to identifiable victim); McKenzie v. Hawaii Permanente Medical Group, Inc., 96 Haw. 296, 297-98, 47 P.3d 1209 (2002) (patient fainted while driving due to new medicine prescribed three days before).
In Lodge, the plaintiffs were seeking damages from several business entities that negligently caused the transmission of a false fire alarm. As
Although the plaintiff cited no rule of practice in his brief, we assume that he is relying on Practice Book § 11-10, which provides in relevant part: “A memorandum of law briefly outlining the claims of law and authority pertinent thereto shall be filed and served by the movant with the following motions . . . (5) motions for summary judgment. . . .”
In addressing the plaintiffs claim, we do not imply or decide that the psychologist was qualified to determine the patient’s ability to operate a motor vehicle.
See 2 Restatement (Second), Torts §§ 314A, 324 (1965).