Beeman v. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

• Decision Date: 01 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 188,188
• Citation: Beeman v. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 666 A.2d 1314, 107 Md.App. 122 (Md. App. 1995)
• Parties: , 7 NDLR P 219 Arlena BEEMAN v. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND MENTAL HYGIENE. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 122

107 Md.App. 122

666 A.2d 1314, 7 NDLR P 219

Arlena BEEMAN v.DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND MENTAL HYGIENE.

No. 188, Sept. Term, 1995.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Nov. 7, 1995.

Ada E. Cherry-Mahoi, Baltimore (Andrew S. Penn, Landover, and Carolyn Lathrop, Cumberland, on the brief), for appellant.

David R. Morgan, Assistant Attorney General(J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before FISCHER, DAVIS and HARRELL, JJ.

HARRELL, Judge.

Appellant, Arlena Beeman, appeals from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Allegany County(Sharer, J.) that affirmed the order of an administrative law judge dismissing her appeal from the decision by a clinical review panel to administer certain antipsychotic medications to her forcibly.In this appeal, we consider whether § 10-708(k) of the Health-General Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland comports with the requirements for due process contained in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States ConstitutionandArticle 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.The statutory provision, on its face, imposes a forty-eight hour window in which to appeal to an administrative law judge decisions made by clinical review panels to forcibly medicate psychiatric patients.The statute does not expressly take into account the patient's mental capacity to understand and exercise that right of appeal.Because we believe that the existing procedural protections contained in the statute as a whole, in light of the presumption of competency and the availability of alternative guardianship proceedings, adequately protect the patient's constitutional liberty interests, we shall affirm.

ISSUES PRESENTED

Appellant presents two issues for our consideration, which we have slightly re-phrased for analysis as follows:

I.Does the failure by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to assess and account for an involuntarily committed psychiatric patient's mental capacity to understand and exercise her right to an administrative appeal from a decision by a clinical review panel to forcibly medicate her violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights?

II.Does the failure by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to assess and account for an involuntarily committed psychiatric patient's mental capacity to understand and exercise her right to an administrative appeal from a decision by a clinical review panel to forcibly medicate her violate the anti-discrimination prohibitions and reasonable accommodation obligations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and/or Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973?

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

On 23 July 1993, appellant was involuntarily retained at the Thomas B. Finan Center ("Finan Center"), a psychiatric institution operated by the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene("DHMH") in Cumberland, Maryland.¹Appellant soon thereafter refused to take medication (Lithium and Thiothixene) that was prescribed for her by Dana Calderone, M.D., her attending physician, to treat appellant's mental problem, diagnosed as "schizoaffective disorder."²On 27 July 1993, appellant received notice that a clinical review panel("panel") would be convened on the following day to determine whether medication would be administered to her despite her refusal to take it willingly.³After appellant received notice that the panel would be assembling, but before the scheduled meeting, appellant consulted with her rights advisor, ⁴Ms. Delores Ortiz, who provided her with information and assistance regarding the upcoming meeting with the panel.

The panel convened as scheduled on 28 July 1993, with appellant and her rights advisor, among others, present.The panel approved the use of forced medication to treat appellant's mental disorder for a period not to exceed ninety days, and documented its decision as required by HG§ 10-708(i).⁵Appellant received written notice of the panel's decision on Friday, 30 July 1993 at approximately 9:30 a.m.

That same Friday, after receiving notice of the panel's decision, appellant met twice with Ms. Ortiz, who advised appellant of her statutory right to appeal the decision of the panel to an administrative law judge ("ALJ") of the Office of Administrative Hearings("OAH")⁶ and left with appellant the partially completed appeal form.All that remained to be done to the form in order to perfect an appeal was for appellant to affix her signature to it, write in the date and time, and deliver the form to any Finan Center staff person.Ms. Ortiz also left additional copies of the appeal form in appellant's chart and in the charting room.Moreover, Ms. Ortiz notified staff at the Finan Center, and particularly those assigned to appellant's cottage, that appellant may want to appeal the panel's decision over the upcoming weekend.Although appellant had previously appealed at least one prior panel decision requiring her to submit to forced medication, and often initiated contact with an attorney at the Legal Aid Bureau office in Cumberland, she did not express ostensibly to anyone a desire that she wanted to appeal the panel's decision in this case on 30 July, 31 July, or on 1 August 1993.

The forty-eight hour deadline for taking an administrative appeal, provided by HG § 10-708(k)(1), supra, n. 6, expired on 1 August 1993 at approximately 9:30 a.m.Thereafter, on 2 August 1993, after another meeting with her rights advisor, in which appellant made no outward expression of a desire to appeal, medication was administered to appellant, pursuant to the panel's decision, at approximately 10:00 a.m.Later on 2 August 1993, at approximately 3:50 p.m., roughly thirty hours past the statutory deadline, appellant tendered a hand written letter to Finan Center staff, indicating that she wanted to appeal the panel's decision.

Appellee, DHMH, filed with the OAH a motion to dismiss appellant's appeal on the ground that it was not timely filed.The assigned ALJ held an evidentiary hearing on the motion to dismiss at the Finan Center on 13 August 1993.At that hearing, appellant was represented by an attorney from the Legal Aid Bureau who was familiar with her background and current predicament.On 22 October 1993, the ALJ issued her written decision and order dismissing appellant's appeal, finding generally that (1)appellant was properly advised of her appeal rights and otherwise had the assistance required by law of her rights advisor; (2)appellant had timely filed an appeal on at least one prior occasion, but did not do so in the present case; and (3) that she was "not persuaded that [ § 10-708 was] unconstitutional nor [was she] persuaded that the statute was applied [to appellant] in an unconstitutional manner."

⁷

Appellant timely sought judicial review of the decision of the ALJ by the Circuit Court for Allegany County on 4 November 1993, pursuant to HG§ 10-708(l )(1).Appellant persuaded the circuit court, over appellee's objection, not to employ the statutorily provided expedited appeal proceedings under HG§ 10-708(l )(4), which would have required a decision by the circuit court within seven days, but rather to proceed under the more relaxed time provisions of Maryland Rule 7-201, et seq.This decision enabled appellant to prosecute Beeman I on the faster track before having to move forward on the instant appeal.Oral argument was held on the instant appeal on 8 July 1994.The court took the matter under advisement following the hearing.While the matter was pending sub curia, on 18 August 1994, after having received the full course of treatment approved by the panel, appellant was discharged from the Finan Center.On 8 December 1994, the circuit court issued its written opinion and order affirming the decision of the ALJ.Appellee has moved to dismiss the instant appeal as moot.Additional facts will be supplied as necessary in our discussion of the issues we address.

DISCUSSION

MOOTNESS

Appellee contends that the issues raised by appellant in this appeal are moot because the clinical review panel's decision approving the forced medication of appellant, on which this appeal is based, expired approximately on 28 October 1993, and any reversal of the ALJ's dismissal of appellant's appeal and remand for a hearing on the merits would be meaningless.Thus, appellee asserts that the instant appeal should be dismissed.⁸

As the Court of Appeals explained in Attorney Gen. v. Anne Arundel Cty. Sch. Bus, 286 Md. 324, 327, 407 A.2d 749(1979):

A question is moot if, at the time it is before the court, there is no longer an existing controversy between the parties, so that there is no longer any effective remedy which the court can provide.

Furthermore, "courts of appeal'do not sit to give opinions on abstract propositions or moot questions; appeals which present nothing else for decision are dismissed as a matter of course.' "Beeman I, supra, 105 Md.App. at 157, 658 A.2d 1172(quotingIn re Riddlemoser, 317 Md. 496, 502, 564 A.2d 812(1989)).We agree with appellee that the question of whether appellant's appeal to the OAH should have been dismissed is moot because, no matter how we would resolve the question, it would be impossible for us to provide an effective legal remedy for appellant when she has already been medicated pursuant to the 28 July 1993panel decision and subsequently released from the Finan Center.The fact that the issues are moot, however, does not preclude per se our consideration of the issues raised.

Although the instances in which courts will depart "from the general rule and practice of not deciding academic questions" are rare, they have been articulated as follows:

[I]f the public interest clearly will be hurt if the question is not immediately decided, if the matter involved is likely to recur frequently, and...