Texas Supreme Court, No. 10-0511 (February 1, 2013)
Per Curiam
The Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion, without hearing oral argument, in which it reversed a judgment against a psychiatrist for negligent failure to involuntarily commit a patient who later committed suicide. Because the psychiatrist did not dispute that he was negligent, the court addressed only causation. The suicide victim’s estate cited two passages of expert testimony as evidence that the psychiatrist’s negligence proximately caused the suicide. The expert testified that: (1) the victim would not have been able to kill herself in a hospital, and (2) she was severely depressed and exhibited numerous “red flags,” making it foreseeable that she would commit suicide if not hospitalized. The court of appeals had concluded that the first statement “demonstrated that hospitalization would have made [decedent’s] suicide unlikely,” and thus satisfied the but-for causation component of proximate cause. The Supreme Court disagreed, concluding that, because this testimony addressed only the likelihood of suicide during hospitalization (which plaintiffs acknowledged would not have been permanent) and said nothing about the likelihood of suicide following release from the hospital, it was no evidence that the suicide would have been avoided if the psychiatrist had involuntarily committed the patient. The Supreme Court also noted that the second passage of the expert’s testimony addressed only the foreseeability component of proximate causation, not the but-for causation component. Finding no evidence that the psychiatrist’s negligence was a but-for cause of the suicide, the court reversed the judgment against him and rendered judgment in his favor.
