Mental health care providers have a duty to exercise “reasonable care” to protect identifiable victims when they know their patients pose an imminent risk to them, according to a recent ruling from the Connecticut Supreme Court. The court’s ruling allows several claims of negligence against SVMC Holdings, Inc., which owns St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Westport, to move forward in a lawsuit that claims the hospital is responsible for the shooting death of a young woman who was killed by her former boyfriend after he was released from an involuntary psychiatric hold.
A lower court previously granted a motion to strike Angela Ashworth’s claim against SVMC on the grounds that they were effectively medical malpractice claims because they were substantially related to Michael Mollow’s treatment. The lower court’s ruling relied on a former Supreme Court ruling that found state statute in negligence suits brought against healthcare providers can only be brought by or on behalf of a patient, except in limited cases where conditions, such as foreseeable harm, exist. The court held several of Ashworth’s claims could move forward as negligence.
“We further hold, for the first time, that a mental health care provider who actually knows that his or her patient poses a substantial risk of imminent physical harm to an identifiable victim has a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect that victim from that danger.” the court’s majority wrote in the opinion.
Mollow shot and killed Caroline Ashworth on August 27, 2022, before killing himself in what Branford police ruled a murder-suicide. Ashworth and Mollow had been in a relationship for approximately three years. At the time it began, Ashworth was 18, and Mollow was 57 and married.
According to a lawsuit Angela Ashworth filed against Mollow’s estate, Branford police, and several healthcare companies, Mollow became increasingly controlling over the course of the relationship, including placing a GPS tracker in her car and tracking her without her knowledge. The lawsuit also details several 911 calls where Caroline expressed fear Mollow was going to harm her.
On August 15, 2022, Mollow reported to police that Caroline had stolen his truck. She reportedly moved out of Mollow’s home the following week and took the truck to Alabama to visit her grandmother.
A week later, Mollow checked himself into Midstate Medical Center’s emergency department for depression and “with homicidal ideations directed specifically against Caroline.” Mollow reportedly told healthcare professionals Caroline had ended the relationship, that he had guns, was using alcohol and drugs, and was having homicidal ideations about her. Mollow was placed on a 15-day involuntary psychiatric hold and later transferred to St. Vincent’s.
St. Vincent’s released Mollow 44 hours later on August 26, the day before he shot and killed Caroline. Mollow’s discharge plan did not call for further supervision and neither Branford police nor Caroline were notified of his release.
Ashworth’s lawsuit alleges SVMC is responsible for Caroline’s death by prematurely discharging Mollow when he was willing to remain in treatment, failing to perform an adequate risk assessment, and failing to determine how Mollow would act upon discharge if he saw Caroline again, among other things.
While a trial court granted SVMC’s motion to dismiss the claims against them, citing a previous ruling from the state’s highest court, the Supreme Court’s ruling allows some of Ashworth’s claims, alleging that the hospital should have known Mollow had threatened to harm Caroline and failed to exercise reasonable care, to go forward. They did not allow a claim alleging the hospital had committed gross medical negligence to move forward.
The Supreme Court found that some of Ashworth’s claims should be considered negligence rather than medical malpractice because they challenged SVMC’s “reasonable response to a known, substantial risk of imminent physical harm to an identifiable victim” including that St. Vincent’s failed to “take reasonably necessary steps to control [Mollow] so as to prevent him from causing harm to or killing [Caroline],” prematurely discharging Mollow before the 15 day psychiatric hold had expired, and failing to use resources to contact Caroline and warn her of Mollow’s homicidal ideations.
“Although this court had previously expressed a general aversion to extending the duty of health care providers to nonpatient third parties, it also had, under limited circumstances, recognized the potential for liability in cases, such as the present one, involving an identifiable potential victim who will be foreseeably harmed as a result of a health care provider’s negligence.” the court found.
Justice Steven D. Ecker filed a separate opinion agreeing in part and dissenting in part from the majority. Ecker argued that that the court’s barring of Ashworth’s gross medical negligence claim, following its previous interpretation of statute, showed “the dangers of following ill-conceived precedent off the proverbial cliff.”
“We hold today that our case law allows the killer’s estate to sue the psychiatric hospital for medical negligence but bars
the victim’s estate from doing so—unless, perhaps, the victim happens to have been married to her killer at the time of the murder, in which case the statutory prohibition somehow disappears.” Ecker wrote, arguing the court’s previous ruling should be overruled.
Ashworth’s lawsuit is one of several interrelated lawsuits in a complicated, years-long legal battle stemming from the deaths of Caroline and Mollow. The administrator of Mollow’s estate also filed a lawsuit against the town of Branford and several healthcare companies involved in Mollow’s hospitalization. Both suits are scheduled to go to trial in 2027.
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This is a very dangerous precedent if allowed to proceed. Then can judges, attorneys be held liable for releasing dangerous people? Hmmm maybe it’s a good thing if they were to be… a lot less criminals in the streets for sure.