5 ms·

A big problem is that people receiving psychiatric care often can't get justice in court. Who is the jury, or judge, more likely to believe, someone who needed

• awinter-py 2y ago
  could create a system for getting an easy second opinion from a doctor outside the facility then its not patient vs doctor, it's doctor vs doctor
• cj 2y ago
  Agreed, to an extent. If this happening as frequently as the article suggests, and if Arcadia operates over 50 hospitals, you’d think there would be at least 1 law firm dedicated solely to prosecuting this specific hospital. Skip the class action BS, and run those “mesothelioma” type commercials. Then have a boilerplate structure for a lawsuit that you can repeat successfully, hire your own doctors as expert witnesses to refute the hospital, etc. If they are imprisoning people illegally, I imagine the settlements would be quite high per patient. > But since it was just the doctor's word against theirs When something is widespread and perpetrated by the same people, you have to establish a pattern of behavior to discredit the witness. The narrative could be pretty straight forward: the doctor was lying to the insurance company, and they’re lying to the jury, too. Seems they already settled a couple suits, which could potentially be used to discredit the hospital as well. But again, you really need a specialized firm willing to take them down by taking on a bunch of similar cases to make it worthwhile to do all of the background/evidence/research to make a case. This is also the type of case that could get heavy PR / public support which the right law firms can leverage in their favor. …or we embrace better regulation and trust the government to fix this. But the government also has a terrible track record when it comes to caring for the mentally ill.
  • giantg2 2y ago
    The mesothelioma commercials only really became prevalent after suits were won and the firms knew they could get money just by adding more people to the class (or really getting them to collect).
    • staticautomatic 2y ago
      Meso class actions went away a long time ago. These days they’re all individual suits, and on rare occasions, MDLs.
      • giantg2 2y ago
        Yeah, but they're practically defacto wins as long as the same basic conditions are met.
        • staticautomatic 2y ago
          The individual meso cases? Lol no. At least some of the defendants nearly always settle but they’re not remotely slam dunks for the plaintiffs if they make it to trial.
          • giantg2 2y ago
            Compared to any random cases, they are extremely high success rate if the intake criteria is meet.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    > If they are imprisoning people illegally, I imagine the settlements would be quite high per patient. That depends on whether or not anyone cares about the patient. Many, many psych patients have basically been disowned by their families, they have no friends, and don't have the ability to live on their own in society. Maybe the lawyers would care enough about them, if they could win a suit, but I'd not bet on that. I'd suspect that a huge number of homeless folks were ones that would have been "lifers" in mental hospitals. The enormous homeless problem in the US is actually relatively new. I remember when it was much, much less of a problem (We have always had them, but nowhere near the scale we have them, now). We live in a nation, where it is easier for mentally ill people to get weapons, than help[0]. That said, in MD, where I lived for a while, we had The Patuxent Institution[1]. It may still be around. Charming place. It inspired this movie[2]. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/08/24/nx-s1-5028551/insurance-therapy-therapist-mental-health-coverage https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/08/24/nx... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/
• giantg2 2y ago
  It gets more fundamental than this. These laws for involuntary commitment are civil laws and lack the protections of criminal court. The hearings can be ex parte, you don't have a right to an attorney, and proof is only what is more likely than not and not beyond a reasonable doubt. If you had a lawyer at the hearing and the proof required overcoming reasonable doubt, then there would be fewer abuses (one would hope anyways). These types of abuses happen with all the "institutional" civil laws - involuntary commitment, civil asset forfeiture, guardianship, red flag, and especially protection from abuse orders (weaponized in divorces fairly commonly). It will continue to increase as we, as a society, continue to favor quick and easy "fixes" to overcome the protections found on the criminal side.
  • AlphaSite 2y ago
    I think they’ve made a good effort on the laws in CA, 5150 and 5160 ensure each patient has a social worker advocate to look out for them and it needs recurring sign offs from a judge. They helped more than 1 friend of mine when they when they needed the help. The real issue is the 100k+ bill they got at the end, but politics so I digress.
• exe34 2y ago
  > Who is the jury, or judge, more likely to believe, someone who needed psychiatric care, or a credentialed doctor? > or stopped taking medication that was making them feel worse. This kind of thing used to scare me - once you're booked into the system, they can literally stab you with an injection to make you behave in whatever way they want to portray you in court. And that's just if they're outright malicious. Worse, they might instead be entirely earnest in their belief that you need to take that particular pill, that makes your misdiagnosed condition worse.
• Vampiero 2y ago
  If you're so intent on suing for malpractice just record them against their will. If the court doesn't accept it then the media will