Hofflander v. St. Catherine’s Hosp., Inc.,

Hofflander v. St. Catherine’s Hosp., Inc.,
No. 00-246700-2467 (Wis. Ct. App. Aug. 21, 2001)

A former psychiatric patient sued a hospital for negligence and safe place claims
after she fell from a third story window during an attempted escape. The patient
had been involuntarily committed to the hospital and after two days entered
another patient’s room, removed the air conditioner from the window, and attempted
to scale down the wall using bed sheets. The patient was discovered only after
losing her grip and falling three stories to the ground, suffering multiple
injuries. The hospital was granted summary judgment because the trial court
found that the hospital could not have foreseen the particular manner in which
the patient escaped and injured herself. The trial court also held that the
hospital’s JCAHO records were privileged peer review documents. An appeal followed.

The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin reversed the grant of summary judgment. Specifically,
the court found that there were still questions of fact from which a jury may
infer that the hospital did have a special obligation to the patient, to protect
her from foreseeable harms such as an escape attempt. The appeals court stated
that the foreseeability prong requires only that the risk of elopement be foreseeable,
not the manner of the elopement. The court also determined that there were disputed
material facts regarding the safety of the hospital’s psychiatric ward which
made summary judgment inappropriate.

The court affirmed the trial court’s determination that the hospital’s JCAHO
records were privileged peer review documents. The court found that JCAHO performs
functions equivalent to a peer review committee and therefore public policy
demands their privileged status.