John Lucy and Shannon Harkins recently won the dismissal of a claim for negligent mental health treatment.  John and Shannon had filed Preliminary Objections with the York County Court of Common Pleas.  Their Preliminary Objections were sustained and the action was dismissed, with prejudice.

The action arose from mental health treatment of a minor who allegedly assaulted Plaintiffs after being discharged from treatment.  Plaintiffs initially asserted a claim under the Pennsylvania Mental Health Procedures Act, alleging that the care provider had a duty to protect third parties from the behavior of its patients.  John and Shannon argued that Plaintiffs had not sufficiently pled the factors necessary for imposition of a duty to warn a third party of an imminent threat, as set forth in Emerich v. Phila. Ctr. For Hum. Dev., Inc.  The Court agreed that the Complaint filed by Plaintiffs did not establish an immediate threat against a specific or readily identifiable victim.  It thus sustained the first set of Preliminary Objections.

Following the above, Plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint, abandoning their previous legal theory.  The Plaintiffs now asserted that the care provider undertook a duty to render mental health services and did so negligently, breaching a duty to protect foreseeable victims of that negligence.  John and Shannon argued that Plaintiffs were, in essence, attempting to impose a new affirmative duty or, alternatively, seeking to carve out a new exception to the well-established rule that a healthcare professional has no duty to warn or protect a third party.  Furthermore, John and Shannon argued that the facts pled in the Amended Complaint were still not sufficient to establish a valid claim under either theory of recovery.  The Court considered the relevant factors for imposing a new affirmative duty and held that the same weighed heavily against imposing a duty on the care provider.  The Court was particularly concerned with the risk that expanding this duty, and thus the liability, would make mental health services less available.  The Court again sustained the Preliminary Objections, dismissing Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint.

Questions about this case can be directed to John Lucy at (717) 441-7067 or jlucy@tthlaw.com, or to Shannon Harkins at (717) 237-7147 or sharkins@tthlaw.com.