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Headnote: John Falk, Personal Representative of the Estate of Elene Siebert v. Southern Maryland Hospital Center, Inc., et al., No. 1924, September Term, 1998. A MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDER IS NOT LIABLE FOR THE VIOLENT BEHAVIOR OF HIS OR HER PATIENTS UNLESS HE OR SHE HAD ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PATIENT'S PROPENSITY FOR VIOLENCE AND THE PATIENT INDICATES AN INTENT TO HARM A SPECIFIC VICTIM. WHEN A MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDER WAS STRUCK BY A PATIENT, CAUSING THE PROVIDER TO KNOCK DOWN AND INJURE ANOTHER PATIENT WHO DIED AS A RESULT, THE PROVIDER IS NOT LIABLE FOR INJURIES OR DEATH TO THE INJURED PATIENT WHEN THERE IS NO INDICATION THE VIOLENT PATIENT INTENDED TO HARM THAT SPECIFIC PATIENT. THE INJURED PATIENT MUST BE A FORESEEABLE, READILY IDENTIFIABLE VICTIM TO THE MENTAL HEALTH PATIENT'S VIOLENCE.

REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 1924 September Term, 1998 ___________________________________

JOHN FALK, PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF ELENE SEIBERT

v.

SOUTHERN MARYLAND HOSPITAL, INC., et al.

___________________________________

Thieme, Sonner, Bloom, Theodore G., (retired, specially assigned) JJ. ___________________________________ Opinion by Sonner, J. ___________________________________

Filed: December 7, 1999

3

In

this

case,

appellant,

John

Falk,

acting

as

personal

representative of the estate of his mother, Elene Seibert, filed a medical malpractice suit in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County against Dr. Martin Giller, Dr. Manouchehr Sadri, and

Southern Maryland Hospital Center, Inc. on April 11, 1991, Daniel

The complaint alleged that a twenty-one-year-old

Ferguson,

psychiatric patient who had been admitted involuntarily to Southern Maryland Hospital's locked-down psychiatric ward eleven days

earlier, struck psychiatric nurse Stanley Green with his fist, after two other nurses had refused to grant his request for medication.1 Green then fell over and knocked down Elene Seibert, As a result of

who, at that time, was a patient in the same unit.

her fall, Seibert suffered a broken hip and had to have surgery. She died from surgery-related complications on April 30th at the age of eighty-seven. Falk's suit alleged that it was Dr. Giller, Dr. Sadri, and Southern Maryland Hospital's responsibility to supervise Ferguson and protect Seibert from Ferguson, and that Seibert's death was a direct result of their failure to do so.2 The defendants moved to

dismiss, or in the alternative, for summary judgment based on

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Maryland Law