Friday, November 30, 2007

Statements or Acts of Acquaintances as Unforeseen Intervening Cause of Suicide Attempt

This example (and here) illustrates the necessity of discovering every conversation and interaction between the last contact of the defendant with the suicider, and the attempt. Those are the more proximate and the legal causation of the death or injury. They interrupt the chain of causation and end the claim.

Discovery should explore acts and statements of people in all the settings of the suicider. Trivial adverse events may set off an impulsive person. These do not have to be frustrating to the reasonable person. The suicider is not a reasonable person, by definition. In half the cases, the suicider is intoxicated.

The defendant cannot reasonably foresee, nor control the statements of others, cannot control the over-reaction of the suicider, most of whom have a psychiatric disorder, half of whom are intoxicated.


Intoxication, and its adverse effects on relationships, conduct, and reactions to others, is itself, an unforeseen, intentional, uncontrollable intervening cause.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Lawless Clinician Haters on Licensing Board Should Be Removed by the Governor

The case of irresponsible, tyrannical licensing board conduct is reviewed here. They felt free to ignore settled US Supreme Court holdings.

I urge all doctors to sue the members of any licensing board for any intentional interference with the contracts the doctor has with patients, insurance carriers, and any employer. These clinician haters should be sued as individuals in Section 1981 claims, if the doctor qualifies for any of its protected classes, including age, sex. For example, it is possible the hunt is on for the white male, by the lawyer on these licensing boards.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Center for Suicide Prevention at U Penn Med School

It focuses research on the effectiveness of cognitive therapy in the community. I hope it will not restrict itself to subjects that have mild urges to commit suicide. Its results will not apply to population of people with urges severe enough to go through with them.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Rage as Motive for Murder-Suicide

Yet another suicidal, angry man decides to take little kids with him.

Another Peddler of Garbage Science in Suicide Litigation

In this review, the lawyer on the defense side,

1) fails to state the vast majority of suicide claims are weak or frivolous, and the defense bar is doing nothing to deter the plaintiff bar;

2) there is no correlation between the quality and extensiveness of records correlates with harm to patients. The sole aim of these lawyer rules and regulations is to intimidate the clinician;

3) the standard assessment in articles, guidelines cited are garbage science. No promulgator of such assessment has been able to provide evidence they have ever prevented a suicide.

Many Bizarre Deaths Self-Inflicted

Some are suicide, others involve pointless risk taking, amounting to suicide.

Words Precipitate a Tragic Suicide

This law likely violates the Constitutional. This deeply tragic loss shows that rejection by words, even from a stranger, spoofing a boy, can cause a suicide. Such words have more power to induce suicide than anything a clinician does or fails to do.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Japanese Suicide Remains High

I guess the government has yet to learn, long term treatment of psychiatric disorder is the sole path to decreasing the human toll of suicide. This article reviews the statistics.

Suicide of Child After Internet Criticism

In this article, the mother of the child wants prosecution for causing a suicide, induced by remarks on the internet. The legislative body will violate the Free Speech Clause to remedy a risk caused by genetics, or other environmental factors.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Prof. Jan Fawcett on Black Box Suicide Warning for SSRI

The effect of these warnings was to decrease the prescription of anti-depressants. Decreased long term treatment resulted in an increase of suicides after years of steady decreases.

In girls ages 10 to 14, suicide increased 76%, and in girls 15 to 19, 32%, in 2004 after the above FDA black box warning.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Court Cannot Settle a Clinical Controversy

The imposition of one side of a clinical controversy at the point of the gun of the court violates the procedural due process due right of the defendant to a fair hearing. The Supreme Court, the top of the hierarchy of the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession, has granted its witnesses in bogus litigation absolute immunity. Defendants and other victims of these bought off witnesses need the protection of Federal legislation allowing them to sue these witnesses for imposing their wrongful testimony.

In this review, the always even handed, up to date, and reasonable, Dr. Henry Nasrallah calls the assessment of suicide rick, controversial. Once that word is used, all litigation involving assessment are frivolous per se. The court has no competence to settle a medical controversy. That settling requires scientific data and not the fairy tale spinning, and overheated persuasion of a trial.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Hesitation to Sign a Safety Contract Not a Basis to Keep an Inpatient

In this case, the patient was not sure about contracting for safety. He committed suicide before his outpatient appointment. The plaintiff expert second guessed the release. Vengeful wife claimed a wrongful death. In such a claim, the plaintiff would get what the deceased should have were he alive to sue. Because the deceased killed himself, in general, in the common law, wrongful death claims are not logical. The appellate court reversed the verdict.

"... discharge team had departed from accepted standards of psychiatric care by failing carefully and competently to evaluate decedent following the discussion of the contract for safety at the March 8, 2001 discharge meeting. They concluded that such departure deprived decedent of a substantial possibility of avoiding suicide on March 14, 2001. Specifically, plaintiff testified that during the March 8, 2001 meeting, decedent "hesitated" when asked whether he would contract for safety with her. In its verdict, [*2]the jury found that the failure to reevaluate the discharge plan following decedent's "hesitation" constituted a deviation from accepted medical practice. We disagree."

Then, ""The prediction of the future course of a mental illness is a professional judgment of high responsibility and in some instances it involves a measure of calculated risk. If a liability were imposed on the physician or the State each time the prediction of future course of mental disease was wrong, few releases would ever be made and the hope of recovery and rehabilitation of a vast number of patients would be impeded and frustrated." (Centeno v City of New York, 48 AD2d 812, 813 [1975], affd 40 NY2d 932 [1976].)"

Where is the evidence from the plaintiff expert that any reassessment, or that keeping the patient an inpatient for weeks or months more would have prevented this suicide? The trial court permitted garbage science. It is unfortunate that the court fails to name the experts, so they may be held accountable.