P.W. v. Children’s Hosp. Colo. — Jan. 2016 (Summary)

WRONGFUL DEATH

P.W. v. Children’s Hosp. Colo.
Supreme Court Case No. 15SA151 (Colo. Jan. 25, 2016)

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that a hospital cannot assert comparative negligence and assumption of risk defenses in a wrongful death action arising from a patient suicide when the hospital had knowledge that said self-destructive acts were likely to occur. This litigation arose when a 16-year-old patient was admitted to a secure mental health unit, for the purpose of being prevented from attempting suicide. After being left unsupervised, the patient committed suicide. The court ruled that the hospital assumed an affirmative duty to protect the patient from self-harm, and the nature and scope of that assumption of duty subsumed the patient’s own duty not to harm himself. Therefore, because the patient could not have been at fault under these circumstances as a matter of law, the defenses were correctly dismissed.

The court emphasized that its holding was limited by the facts presented, and does not impose strict liability on hospitals caring for suicidal patients. The patient is still required to prove that the defendant had a duty to prevent foreseeable harm, that it breached that duty, and that the hospital’s breach proximately caused the harm.