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Verdicts
Florida: Suicide No Longer Singled Out As Outside of a Doctor's Influence
Florida's Supreme Court, on Aug. 25, 2016, extended the reach of medical malpractice law to encompass suicide cases. Chirillo v. Granicz, Case No.: SC14-898 (FL 2016).
While depression is now recognized as a medical condition, the courts often treat it as something outside the influence of the medical profession because the injury is self-inflicted. The exception to this has commonly been when the person who committed suicide was receiving in-patient care, or had just recently seen the medical professional in question.
The case before the Supreme Court involved a 55-year-old woman who had a history of depression. She was being treated by Dr. Joseph Chirillo, who switched her medication from Prozac to Effexor. A month later, the patient sought care from Dr. Chirillo again. This time, without actually seeing her, Dr. Chirillo switched the woman's medication again, to the antidepressant Lexapro. The following day, the patient hung herself in her garage. Her husband brought suit against Dr. Chirillo, but Sarasota Circuit Judge Lee Haworth granted the defense's pretrial motion for summary judgment after concluding that the suicide was unpredictable, so Dr. Chirillo had no duty to prevent it.
An intermediate appellate court reversed after holding that Florida's malpractice law, Florida Statute Section 766.102, imposes a duty on medical practitioners to treat patients “in accordance with the standard of care.” Because of this, Dr. Chirillo owed a duty of reasonable care to his patient as a matter of law. The State Supreme Court agreed, stating, “We find that the [appeals court] properly evaluated the instant case based on the statutory duty owed to [the patient] … and also properly classified the foreseeability of the decedent's suicide as a matter of fact for the jury to decide in determining proximate cause.”
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