The Iowa Court of Appeals has ruled that the state is not liable in a lawsuit filed by a former University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics patient who had a sexual relationship with a psychiatrist.

As reported by the Iowa City Press Citizen

Given the regulations that were in place, it looks like the shrink is the only one responsible for his reprehensible conduct. More details at the link

The Iowa Court of Appeals has ruled that the state is not liable in a lawsuit filed by a former University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics patient who had a sexual relationship with a psychiatrist.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, the appeals court reversed a previous decision by a Johnson County District Court judge denying the state's motion for summary judgment.

The civil suit stems from a 2010 relationship between Dr. Sergio Paradiso, then a psychiatrist at UIHC, and Sonni Giudicessi, who had been treated by Paradiso and others at the hospital in 2008 and 2009.

According to court records, the two secretly engaged in a sexual relationship from March to June 2010 — four months after Giudicessi had been discharged for treatment. Giudicessi's Des Moines-based psychiatrist reported the relationship to UIHC in July of that year, and Paradiso voluntarily surrendered his medical license in 2012 after the Iowa Board of Medicine found he violated the laws of medical practice.

Giudicessi sued Paradiso in July 2011 for medical negligence, battery, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other charges. She also sued the hospital for breach of contract and negligent hiring.

The appeals court ruled this week that there is no evidence that Paridiso represented to Giudicessi that their sexual relationship was a continuation of their previous counseling relationship.

"Paradiso pursued the relationship for his own personal interest and not the interests of UIHC," Judge Thomas Bower wrote in the court's decision. "... Paradiso's acts were 'so far removed' from his employment duties the State could not be held liable."

Paradiso worked in the psychiatry department at UIHC as a staff doctor from 1997 through his departure in July 2010. According to the ruling, UIHC resident doctors are trained that it is inappropriate to have sexual relationships with patients.

In the ruling, Bower noted that the department's head of psychiatry has distributed a list of "commandments" to residents and fellows, with the first commandment being: "Though shalt not sleep with any UI Psychiatry Hospital patient unless it be thy spouse."

The American Psychiatric Association Code of Ethics prohibits relations between current and former patients, and UIHC policies prohibit sexual harassment, Bower wrote.

[...]

Is the U.S. Supreme Court Poised to Strip Consumers of Right to Sue over Deadly Pharmaceuticals?

As reported here, regarding the case Warner-Lambert Co. v. Kent:

In arguments and discussion for Warner-Lambert Co. v. Kent heard today, Justices are proposing that consumers should not be able to sue pharmaceutical companies for damages from side effects because some people might be helped by those same drugs. Forget all the technical legalities -- this argument is absurd from the outset. Here's why:

If Ford makes a defective car with a poorly-designed gasoline tank that explodes and kills someone, that person's family has a right to sue Ford, correct? But the U.S. Supreme Court is now effectively arguing that Ford should be granted immunity to all lawsuits because its cars provide benefits to other drivers.

In other words, the fact that Ford cars don't kill some consumers somehow makes up for the ones killed by those defective cars. (In this case, Ford is just an example. There is no pending legislation against Ford that involves the U.S. Supreme Court.)

That argument is absurd. If put in place, it would mean that individuals no longer have the right to sue companies for defective products, and the very definition of "harm" is no longer measured on an individual basis but rather by some sort of yet-unstated collective scorekeeping that says no company can be sued if its products provide benefits to somebody.

Of course, this is all being selectively applied only to the pharmaceutical industry at the moment, but if this line of thinking is allowed to continue, it could very quickly lead to blanket immunity for virtually all corporations against any consumer lawsuits. After all, the argument being made to protect Big Pharma is that even though drugs kill lots of people, the fact that they help some people who aren't killed outweighs the liability from the dead people. Should this also apply to automobiles? Fireworks? Roller coasters? At what point does the U.S. Supreme Court think corporations should actually be held liable for the harm caused by their products?

Psychiatrist loses appeal over sex crimes

A report from the Washington Poston the final failed appeal of a psychiatrist caught doing the wrong thing. Part of a much larger article.

The hearing was entering its 10th hour Thursday night when Arlington County psychiatrist Martin H. Stein learned that his 40-year career as a practicing physician was effectively over.

The Virginia Board of Medicine denied Stein's petition to reinstate the license he surrendered six years ago for his treatment of 10 patients, among them a 4-year-old whose legs he bound with duct tape.

The three-member panel found that Stein had harmed 17 other patients by over-prescribing sometimes dangerous combinations of drugs, diagnosing nonexistent conditions and engaging in unethical behavior with female patients.

Stein, 67, who declared personal bankruptcy five years ago and has been sued more than 15 times since 1995, may reapply or appeal. But both are expensive, time-consuming processes with virtually no chance of success.

Links to earlier Stories

• From the Archives: Va. Doctor's Misconduct Left Trail of Broken Lives
• From the Archives: A Broken Marriage And a 'Life Destroyed'

Psychiatrist Convicted Of Prescription Fraud Loses Appeal

Report from Maine's WMTW TV

A psychiatrist who founded a methadone clinic in Westbrook has lost his appeal of his conviction and six-month prison sentence for prescription fraud.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston denied the appeal of Dr. Marc Shinderman, who was found guilty in 2006 of writing prescriptions for controlled substances using another doctor's name and drug registration number.

Shinderman, who started CAP Quality Care in 2001, was not licensed to write the prescriptions in Maine and said he believed that the arrangement was acceptable.

In its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court rejected all four of Shinderman's arguments, including the trial judge's refusal to allow jurors to hear his proposed entrapment defense and the use of an obstruction of justice enhancement during sentencing.

SSRI Research - What Do I Need to Know about Antidepressants?

SSRI Research is a small but interesting website with a good collection of materials regarding the side effects of SSRIs. They have pages dedicated to

• Dangers of SSRIs
• Informed Consent
• FDA Suicide Warnings
• Protect Your Child
• Pregnancy, Birth Defects, Babies on Meds
• Brain Zaps
• Dangers of Tapering
• Serotonin Theory
• Statistics

It is also one of several sites dedicated to the cause of Christopher Pittman.

Christopher Pittman (born April 9, 1989 in Huntsville, Alabama) was convicted in 2005 of murdering his grandparents at age 12. The case drew national attention in part because of his age at the time of the crime, and in part because his defense that the prescription drug Zoloft caused him to act.

It is likely that his dosage of Zoloft was absurdly high even by common psychiatric standards.

Do Antidepressants Make Murderers?

More lawyers are picking up on the fact of the liability issues involved with psychiatric drugs, especially when the side effects are so deadly. As seen on the Injury Board website.

Antidepressants are again under scrutiny.

According to a Yahoo! News Article dated December 18, 2007, the Supreme Court will hear a case regarding a teen, Christopher Pittman, sentenced to 30 years of prison for killing his grandparents and setting fire to their home at age 12.

His attorneys argue that the lengthy sentence violates the teen's Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment. They claim that this is the only case in the country that gives such a harsh punishment to a minor.

This case is most noted for its association with the drug, Zoloft. In the original trial, Pittman's attorneys unsuccessfully tried to argue that the drug influenced their client.

According to an August 24, 2004 New York Times article written at the time the original case was pending, most medical experts do not believe in a link between antidepressants and acts of extreme violence and aggression.

Pittman claimed that something told him to commit the murders and that he was feeling isolated and aggravated a few days after starting the drug. Conversely, his doctor's notes about his behavior state that he was energetic and had no plans to harm himself.

The article also makes note of two other cases with similar fact patterns. In 2001, the drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, paid $6.5 million to the relatives of a man in Wyoming who killed his wife, daughter, granddaughter and himself. This was the first time that a jury concluded a SSRI-type of antidepressant may lead users to suicide or homicidal behavior.

In April of 2004, a man in California was acquitted of attempted murder when it was found that his reaction to Zoloft made him unaccountable for his actions.

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed anti-depressant in the United Dates. Following some tests in 2004, the FDA put a "black box" warning on the drug, the strongest warning label that can be given to a drug, because of its association with an increased risk for suicide in children.

Supreme Court asked to hear Zoloft case

From the Buffalo News

Attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a teen sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing his grandparents when he was 12, arguing that the sentence is cruel.

Christopher Pittman shoot his grandparents Joe and Joy Pittman with a shotgun in 2001, then set fire to their home.

During his trial four years later, Pittman's attorneys unsuccessfully argued the slayings were influenced by the antidepressant Zoloft - a charge the maker of the drug vigorously denied.

In the brief submitted to the high court late Monday, attorneys from the University of Texas School of Law argued that the 30-year sentence violates Christopher Pittman's Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Such a lengthy sentence is "unconstitutionally disproportionate as applied to a 12-year-old child," according a copy of the petition provided by the Juvenile Justice Foundation. It said Pittman "is the nation's only inmate serving such a harsh sentence for an offense committed at such a young age."

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia set the minimum age at which a juvenile may be tried as an adult above 12, so in more than half the nation, Pittman's attorneys argue, Pittman could not have been tried as adult and could never have been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Each year about 200,000 defendants under 18 are sent to the adult system, according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice. Most end up there because of state laws that automatically define them as adults, due to their age or offense. Those numbers escalated in the 1990s as juvenile crime soared and legislators responded, with 48 states making it easier to transfer kids into criminal court, according to the center.

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States, with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings - the government's strongest warning short of a ban - about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

Court reserves decision on ex-psychiatrist's murder conviction

From ABC News Australia. The case made spectacular headlines when it was first covered by the news outlets.

Former psychiatrist Jean Eric Gassy will have to wait until next year to learn whether the High Court will order a review of his conviction for the 2002 killing of Margaret Tobin, who was the head of South Australia's Mental Health Services.

The court has reserved its decision in the case.

Gassy has told the High Court today there was a miscarriage of justice because he was denied full access to legal help at the start of his trial and the jury was given instructions reflecting the prosecution case, but not the defense case.

Several of the High Court judges questioned the instructions given to the jury.

But lawyers for South Australia have told the court that although the judge should not have restricted Gassy's access to legal advice in the pre-trial period, it made no difference because his guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Gassy is serving a life sentence.

The case against him included allegations he had committed the murder as an act of vengeance for Dr Tobin's role in his being struck off as a psychiatrist.

The court will deliver its decision next year.

Web Prescription of Anti-Depressants Tests California Medical License Law

As seen at Law.com

[snippet]

Two years ago, Christian Hageseth logged on to the Internet in Colorado and prescribed anti-depressant drugs to a Menlo Park, Calif., teenager with a history of mental illness and alcohol abuse. A few months later, 19-year-old John McKay killed himself in his family home.

Upon learning that Hageseth had treated McKay, and that he didn't have a license in California, state medical investigators urged local prosecutors to charge him with a felony. Last year they did, accusing him of practicing without a California license. The maximum penalty, according to the prosecution, would be three years in state prison and state fines.

And although Hageseth's lawyer and deputy district attorneys in San Mateo County, Calif., disagree on many aspects of the case, this much is clear: The 66-year-old Hageseth would be an easier target for prosecutors had he run his virtual doctor's office inside California state lines.

Now Hageseth -- who had a restricted license in Colorado when he prescribed McKay's medication, according to court documents -- is trying to get the case dismissed, claiming that the state courts lack jurisdiction to try him under California law. Though a San Mateo County judge refused his request, Hageseth's attorney, Santa Rosa, Calif., lawyer Carleton Briggs, has persuaded the 1st District Court of Appeal to consider issuing a writ that would overturn that decision.

Briggs claims that if the 1st District agrees with the government's application of medical licensing laws, thousands of out-of-state doctors could face felony prosecution.

"The decision in this case will shape the future of telemedicine [in California]," Briggs wrote in his petition to the appeal court.

[...]

Susan Penney, a lawyer at the California Medical Association, said she thinks it's uncommon for doctors to prescribe medication without first meeting a patient face to face.

California state law requires medical practitioners to conduct a good-faith exam before prescribing medication, Penney said. The CMA declined to weigh in with an amicus brief on Hageseth's behalf, she said, because Hageseth's position appears to be inconsistent with that requirement.

"We do not believe that we can support [Hageseth's] underlying position ... that it's appropriate to prescribe without a good-faith prior exam," she said.

Full article at the Link - Note: paragraph 20 states "After transmitting his credit card number and some details about his medical history, McKay placed an order for fluoxetine, a generic alternative to Prozac."

For the first time in Canada, a psychiatrist has been held civilly responsible for a murder committed by a patient she released.

As reported in the Toronto Sun, the Globe and Mail, and elsewhere.

Snippets

Just two months before his psychiatrist released him, a Consent and Capacity Review Board turned down his bid to get out: "Without treatment, there is a likelihood that the patient if he left hospital ... will cause serious bodily harm to another person."

In mid-October, Stefaniu herself wrote: "Further deterioration of his mental state with potential for self harm and/or harassing others."

A forensic psychiatrist called in by the hospital to assess him in November agreed he "posed a potential danger."

On Dec. 2, Stefaniu wrote that he "remains delusional and paranoid."

The next day, nurses' notes described Johannes as "extremely hostile" with threatening body language. On Dec. 4, he threatened a nurse.

Yet that very night, Stefaniu examined him and suddenly concluded he was no longer paranoid or psychotic. She was now convinced by his new argument that he had faked it all, that his behaviour had been "staged and planned."

"I think she was just fed up," Lailah believes. "Maybe she was tired of dealing with him or she was just careless, but it just didn't make sense for her to let him out."

But the next day, she did just that, changing his patient status from involuntary to voluntary, and allowing Johannes back into the community.

On Jan. 24, 1997, he brutally stabbed his sister to death in her home.

"Our mom was there in the morning when we went to school," Lelise recalls softly, "and then she wasn't there anymore."

Half their lives later, and the tears still fall. "We were just little girls," Lailah says, wiping them away. "We depended on her for everything. There was never anyone there to teach us how to grow up from a girls' point of view.

"Our dad did the best he could, but we never had any close aunts or a grandmother -- it was just us and it was hard."

Their memories of her have begun to fade. Lailah clings to how her mom smelled like winter when she tucked them in at night and how she'd let them do her makeup. For Lelise, there is the aching emptiness of being too young to have known her well. "There's so much I want to know about her childhood, about her life, and I have a lot of questions that will go unanswered."

---

She should be with them now, seeing how they've graduated and grown into accomplished young women with dreams of becoming doctors themselves.

She should be with them today, to wipe away that tear that slips down Lailah's cheek at mention of her memory, to smile with pride as Lelise speaks so eloquently of their pursuit of justice.

She should be with them, but she is not. Roslyn Knipe was brutally murdered almost 10 years ago, stabbed 60 times and mutilated by a mentally ill brother who should never have been allowed to leave the psychiatric unit of Humber Memorial Hospital.

"It could have been prevented," argues Lelise Ahmed, Knipe's 19-year-old daughter.

"To us, it seemed obvious that something had gone very wrong," adds her older sister, Lailah, 20. "From the facts, we knew this wasn't the way it was supposed to happen and someone should take responsibility for it."

Now Ontario's highest court has agreed, unanimously upholding last year's jury verdict awarding the girls and their father $172,000 after finding Dr. Rodica Stefaniu negligent for releasing William Johannes from Humber on Dec. 5, 1996

The Ontario Court of Appeal decision Friday is precedent-setting, says their lawyer Brian Horowitz. For the first time in Canada, a psychiatrist has been held civilly responsible for a murder committed by a patient she released.

"If they're doing their jobs properly, it shouldn't have any effect," he says, dismissing claims that it will have a dangerous chilling effect on doctors. "But it's a reminder to the medical profession that these are very important decisions."

Convicted Psych Loses Appeal

Convicted Fall River psychiatrist Kennard C. Kobrin of Barrington, Rhode Island has lost an appeal for a stay of sentence. He was convicted in December of illegally prescribing the tranquilizer Klonopin and defrauding the state Medicaid system

Psych alledged to have caused a "miscarriage of justice in a sex-abuse case"

[In New Zealand] Christchurch psychiatrist Karen Zelas has been found by the Court of Appeal to have "gratuitously" exceeded the scope of permissible expert opinion, causing a miscarriage of justice in a sex-abuse case. Multiple convictions arising from the case have been quashed and a retrial has been ordered. Naming the alleged offender is prohibited as are any aspects of the case that would identify him. Other recent testimony in other cases by Dr. Zelas has also come under recent scrutiny.

2nd Circuit Overrules Vermont State Law on Forced Medication

On Friday the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a portion of a 1998 Vermont state law known as Act 114, which established a process by which certain mentally ill Vermonters could be involuntarily medicated. The federal appeals court upheld an earlier district court decision, ruling that a section of Act 114 was discriminatory. That portion involved the rights of patients who sign a durable power of attorney (DPOA), which include instructions for their care, while they are still deemed competent.

It seems to be that if you have a durable power of attorney, the state is now far less able to ignore your wishes, and simply drug you up.

An injunction already has been in place barring the state from enforcing the portion of Act 114 involving patients who have prepared a durable power of attorney.

The full decision is docket number 02-7160 and is available online at the 2nd Circuit Website

Psychiatrist has 'lenient' sentence for rapes extended

Three judges in London agreed with submissions made on behalf of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, that the term imposed on 60-year-old psychiatrist Christopher Allison in December was "unduly lenient." The eight-year jail sentence given to the psychiatrist who raped and sexually assaulted vulnerable women patients has been increased by two years by the Court of Appeal.

Allison's name was removed from the medical register in August 2000 and he will never be able to practise again.

NH State Court withdraws psych drugging opinion

The New Hampshire state Supreme Court has withdrawn an opinion that said judges could order mentally ill suspects to take psychiatric drugs, because its opinion conflicted with a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued three days later. The state Supreme Court ruled in New Hampshire vs. Raymond Bahmer on June 13 that judges could order medication for mentally ill defendants for up to one year, if the treatment is likely to make them competent to stand trial.

Then on June 16, in the case of a mentally ill dentist, Charles Sell, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled defendants can be required to take psychiatric drugs only when there is no alternative treatment and when the government has a vital interest in prosecution. Even then, prosecutors must show the drugs are in the best medical interests of the suspect and unlikely to produce side effects that could hinder his ability to get a fair trial, the U.S. Supreme Court said. The federal court said such cases probably would be "rare."

Legal experts said the Sell decision would make it difficult to force medication on defendants - like Bahmer and Sell - who are not a danger to themselves or others and are not charged with violent crimes.