Irvin v. S. Ill. Healthcare

2019 IL App (5th) 170446

128 N.E.3d 1149

431 Ill.Dec. 979

Anita IRVIN, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.SOUTHERN ILLINOIS HEALTHCARE, d/b/a Carbondale Memorial Hospital; The City of Carbondale; the City of Carbondale Police Department ; and Officer Mark Murray, Defendants

(Southern Illinois Healthcare, d/b/a Carbondale Memorial Hospital, Defendant-Appellee).

NO. 5-17-0446

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District.

Filed April 23, 2019

Rehearing denied July 1, 2019

Bryan A. Drew and Brittany L. Elliott, of Drew Law Group, of Benton, for appellant.

John C. Ryan and Kara L. Jones, of Feirich Mager Green Ryan, of Carbondale, for appellee.

JUSTICE CHAPMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 At issue in this appeal is what steps a health care provider may take if it has reason to believe that a patient may be suicidal. The plaintiff, Anita Irvin, sought treatment for swelling and pain in her leg at the emergency room of a hospital operated by the defendant, Southern Illinois Healthcare. At some point, her primary care physician informed the attending emergency room physician that the plaintiff recently made suicidal ideations. Emergency room personnel prevented the plaintiff from leaving the hospital. When and if the plaintiff was asked to speak to a mental health counselor is in dispute. Emergency room personnel also required the plaintiff to change into a paper hospital gown, turn over her purse, and provide blood and urine samples before a counselor could be called to evaluate her. The plaintiff subsequently filed a complaint for false imprisonment. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff appeals, arguing that summary judgment was inappropriate because there were genuine issues of material fact concerning the lawfulness of her detention. We hold that a health care provider must comply with the requirements of the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code (Mental Health Code) ( 405 ILCS 5/1-100 et seq. (West 2014) ). Because we agree with the plaintiff that there are genuine issues of material fact related to whether the defendant did so, we reverse.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 The events at issue took place in August of 2014. At the time, the plaintiff's primary care doctor was Dr. Jeffrey Parks. Among other things, he was treating her for pain and swelling in her right leg, which had been an ongoing problem for seven years. The plaintiff saw Dr. Parks for this problem on August 12. According to one of Dr. Parks' nurses, Leah Hutton, as the plaintiff was leaving the office, she said that she was so tired of dealing with the pain and swelling in her leg that she "felt like slitting her wrists." Hutton left a message for Dr. Parks, informing him of the plaintiff's comment. According to Dr. Parks, he saw Hutton's message the following morning. He followed up with the plaintiff by urging her to seek counseling, which she refused to do. He also discussed the matter with the plaintiff's husband, who assured him that his wife was not suicidal. Dr. Parks did not take any of the steps available under the Mental Health Code to have the plaintiff involuntarily committed or detained for a mental health evaluation. See id. §§ 3-601, 3-602, 3-603, 3-605.

¶ 4 Two days later, on August 15, 2014, the plaintiff called Dr. Parks's office, again complaining of pain and swelling in her leg. He suggested that she go to the emergency room at Carbondale Memorial Hospital, which is operated by the defendant. He also told her that he would schedule an MRI. Dr. Parks did not intend to schedule the MRI that day, during the plaintiff's emergency room visit; however, that is what she believed he meant. Dr. Parks told the plaintiff to ask for Dr. Haake.

¶ 5 The plaintiff drove herself to the emergency room at Carbondale Memorial Hospital. Her husband, Ted Irvin, met her there. Although the precise sequence of events is in dispute, the following facts are not. The plaintiff arrived at the emergency room sometime between 2 and 3 p.m. She indicated that her chief complaint was pain and swelling in her leg. She asked for Dr. Haake, but she was seen by Dr. John Bollig. Ted Irvin left to go to work sometime between 5 and 6 p.m. There is no indication in the record that Dr. Bollig or any of the nurses treating the plaintiff were aware of the plaintiff's earlier statement to Dr. Parks prior to Ted's departure, and there is no indication that the plaintiff engaged in any behavior that led them to believe that a mental health evaluation was necessary.

¶ 6 The plaintiff walked out of the hospital sometime between 7 and 7:20 p.m. She was not given discharge papers. She was approached in the parking lot by a nurse, who told her she could not leave. When the plaintiff refused to accompany the nurse back into the hospital, the nurse called security. At some point, the police were also called. The plaintiff walked back into the hospital with the two security guards and the nurse at about the same time the police arrived.

¶ 7 The plaintiff was then detained in an exam room by two security guards, a nurse, and three police officers. According to the defendant, the plaintiff was told that she was being detained for a mental health evaluation before she walked out of the hospital. According to the plaintiff, she was never told why she was not allowed to leave.

¶ 8 It is undisputed that while the plaintiff was detained in the exam room, she was required to get undressed, put on a paper hospital gown, provide blood and urine samples, and turn over her purse to the security guards before emergency room personnel would even request that a mental health counselor come to the room to evaluate her. The plaintiff refused to do so. She sat on her purse so it could not be taken from her. This led to a struggle for possession of the purse involving the plaintiff, one of the police officers, and one of the security guards. Although the plaintiff denies biting the police officer during this struggle, she was subsequently convicted on one count of battery for doing so. The officer managed to take the plaintiff's purse from her. The plaintiff was then shackled to the bed until she was transported to jail on the battery charge. We note that although she had to be medically cleared before she could be taken to jail, once she was shackled to the bed, no further medical or psychiatric evaluation took place.

¶ 9 On August 14, 2015, the plaintiff filed a four-count complaint against the City of Carbondale, the Carbondale Police Department, the defendant, and Officer Mark Murray. She alleged that she was forcibly detained by the defendant's security guards without lawful justification. She further alleged that Officer Murray removed her purse at the direction of hospital staff. She alleged that, in doing so, Officer Murray forced her head between her knees, which exacerbated neck pain she was experiencing due to a recent surgery. (We note that, at the plaintiff's bench trial on the battery charge, security guard Albert Keown denied that anyone pushed the plaintiff's head down during the struggle over her purse, but Officer Murray testified that he believed one of the security guards did so. The plaintiff testified that one of the officers pushed her head down.) The plaintiff further alleged that she experienced significant emotional distress as a result of the incident. She asserted claims of aggravated battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress against all four defendants, a claim of false imprisonment against Southern Illinois Healthcare, and a claim of false arrest or false imprisonment against the other three defendants. The court granted motions to dismiss three of the four claims. The only claim remaining is the false imprisonment claim against the defendant, Southern Illinois Healthcare.

¶ 10 On June 14, 2017, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on the remaining claim. It argued that the plaintiff could not prove that her detention was unlawful or unreasonable, one of the elements necessary to support a claim of false imprisonment. The defendant asserted that hospital staff had knowledge of statements of "suicidal ideation and self mutilation" made by the plaintiff. It argued that her "brief detention" was therefore "reasonable to allow a mental health counselor to perform an evaluation to determine whether the plaintiff was subject to involuntary commitment or could be released for follow-up outpatient care and treatment." Attached to the motion were the discovery depositions of the plaintiff and Dr. Parks, a transcript of the plaintiff's bench trial on the battery charge, and a patient information record from her emergency room visit.

¶ 11 In his deposition, Dr. Parks testified that he was the plaintiff's primary care doctor from 1999 until 2014, when the incident at issue took place. He testified that the plaintiff's health problems included high blood pressure and back pain, in addition to the pain and swelling in her right leg. He explained that the pain and swelling in the plaintiff's leg began in 2007, after she fell while skating. The fall left her with a sore above her knee that did not heal properly and chronic pain in the leg. He also testified that at some point, the plaintiff was prescribed an antidepressant, although he did not know whether she was taking it in the summer of 2014.

¶ 12 Dr. Parks relied on a section of the plaintiff's medical records called "Nurses' Notes" for most of his testimony concerning the events at issue. He explained that the Nurses' Notes section was used to document phone calls and that it could be used by any of the medical providers in his office, not just the nurses. He testified that he saw the plaintiff in his office for leg pain on August 12, 2014, three days before the incident at the defendant's emergency room. He then testified about the Nurses' Notes entries for the following day, August 13. He noted that he received a message from a nurse, Leah Hutton, that when ...