Crawford v. Brown

• Decision Date: 03 June 1926
• Docket Number: No. 16947.,16947.
• Citation: 151 N.E. 911,321 Ill. 305
• Parties: CRAWFORD v. BROWN et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

321 Ill. 305

151 N.E. 911

CRAWFORD

v.BROWN et al.

No. 16947.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 23, 1926.

Rehearing Denied June 3, 1926.

Error to Superior Court, Cook County; James S. Baldwin, Judge.

Action by Selma Crawford against Sanger Brown and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

Charles P. R. Macaulay, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Frederick A. Brown, George P. Merrick, and Clinton Merrick, all of Chicago, for defendants in error.

FARMER, J.

Selma Crawford (hereafter referred to as plaintiff) sued Dr. Sanger Brown and Ada Crawford (referred to herein as defendants) for damages for unlawfully restraining her liberty and detaining her in prison. The declaration charged defendants assaulted, beat, ill-treated and unlawfully detained plaintiff in prison for 15 days, contrary to the laws of Illinois. Defendants filed pleas of not guilty and notices that they would prove special defenses. The special defense Dr. Brown gave notice he would prove was that plaintiff was restrained in the Kenilworth Sanitarium, owned and conducted by him, while she was of unsound mind and in great danger of injuring herself and attendants, and that she was received at the asylum upon the written request of her son and danghter, and that only such restraint was exercised as was necessary for her welfare. The special defense proposed to be proved by Ada Crawford was that plaintiff, while of unsound mind, was sent to the sanitarium by her son and daughter for treatment; that it was to plaintiff's best interest and that of her husband, who was ill with typhoid fever, that she be taken to the sanitarium for treatment, and that whatever restraint was placed upon her was incidental to her welfare and to the preservation of her husband's health; that the arrangements for taking plaintiff to the sanitarium were made by her son and daughter and by Dr. Schwartz, who was the physician of plaintiff's husband; that all medicine and treatment given plaintiff by Ada Crawford was given under the direction of Dr. Schwartz. The jury, after hearing the evidence and instructions, returned a verdict of not guilty. The court overruled plaintiff's motion for a new trial and rendered judgment upon the verdict. A writ of error has been sued out of this court to review the judgment.

The plaintiff contends the court erred in refusing to direct a verdict for her, as requested; that the verdict was contrary to the evidence; that the court erred in admitting improper evidence, giving erroneous instructions for defendants, and refusing correct instructions asked by the plaintiff, and in permitting the jury to take with them to the jury room certain exhibits introduced in evidence by the defendants.

The ground upon which it is contended this court has jurisdiction to entertain the appeal is that the trial court misconstrued the state and federal Constitutions in instructions that an insane person may be committed without process of law.

Dr. Brown owned and conducted, under a state license, the Kenilworth Sanitarium-an institution where patients, principally of unsound mind, are treated. Doctors and nurses are employed in the institution. Plaintiff is a married woman, and lived in an apartment with her husband, a grown son and daughter. Plaintiff's husband in November, 1915, had typhoid fever, and she nursed him about 10 days, and then secured defendant Ada Crawford, a trained nurse, to take charge of nursing the patient. After the nurse came plaintiff had a collapse or fainting spell, and November 19 she was forcibly given morphine by the nurse, strapped to a stretcher, placed in an ambulance, and taken to the sanitarium. The proof shows arrangements had been made for the ambulance to be sent to plaintiff's residence to take her to the sanitarium, and the morphine was forcibly given plaintiff to render her quiet during the trip to the sanitarium. A drug clerk helped Ada Crawford give the morphine. After being taken to the sanitarium, and after the effects of the drug had passed, plaintiff learned where she was and demanded to be taken to her home, but in defiance of her repeated protests she was not permitted to return home for two weeks. Plaintiff had never been adjudged insane or of unsound mind by any court, and her detention in the sanitarium was not by the judgment of a court.

There is no contention that plaintiff was ever mentally unbalanced prior to the time her husband had typhoid fever. She nursed him before they secured a trained nurse, and her duties and the strain affected her nervous system. She testified the nurse administered to her drugs for a week before she was taken to the sanitarium. The nurse testified plaintiff would go to her husband's room to visit him, run her fingers through his hair, and annoy him and cause his temperature to increase. The nurse testified plaintiff was a nervous woman, which was increased by worry about her husband, and on one occasion before she was sent to the sanitarium the nurse found her in semiconscious condition, partly on a chair and partly on the floor. She testified plaintiff did not completely rally before she was sent to the sanitarium, and the doctor and the family advised that arrangements be made to take her to Dr. Brown's sanitarium. The nurse denied she had previously administered drugs to quiet her, but that the doctor directed she give her a hypodermic of morphine about a half hour before she started on the trip to the sanitarium. Plaintiff was accompanied there by the nurse, who did not go in the sanitarium but returned to plaintiff's husband. Plaintiff testified she was beaten and ill-treated at the sanitarium, but this was denied by the nurses and employees at that institution. When received there she was under the influence of drugs, was quiet, and was placed in a department where the quiet patients were kept. When she came out from under the influence of the drug, the doctors and nurses of the sanitarium testified, she became much excited and demanded that she be allowed to return home, and she was removed to a department where the more excitable and noisy patients were cared for. The proof abundantly shows that plaintiff was forcibly detained in the sanitarium for about two weeks before she was permitted to leave.

The arrangements for taking plaintiff to the sanitarium were made by plaintiff's son and daughter and by Dr. Schwartz. After plaintiff was taken to the sanitarium, Dr. Brown testified, he communicated with her son and daughter, and sent them a contract to sign. It was signed by them, and provided they should pay the sanitarium $65 per week, and recited that it was understood by them that plaintiff was of unsound mind and required restraint for proper care and treatment, and authorized the sanitarium, its officers and employees to exercise such restraint as might be necessary, and agreed to hold the sanitarium, its officers and employees harmless from all suits brought by plaintiff or any one in her behalf.

The defense of justification relied upon is embodied in an instruction given to the jury for defendants, which is as follows:

‘The court instructs you that not every restraint of a person is illegal, and if you believe from the evidence that the plaintiff, by reason of disease or her mental condition, was incapable of subjecting her actions to the control of reason, and if you further believe from the evidence that in her then condition she might have injured herself or others, then it was lawful for her family, or those who were responsible for her, to restrain her of her liberty for a reasonable time for the purpose of treatment. This they could do in her own home or by sending her to an institution where she could receive such treatment.’

Section 1 of the act in relation to the commitment and detention of lunatics (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1925, c. 85) provides that the word ‘insane’ shall be construed to mean any person who by reason of unsoundness of mind is incapable of managing and caring for his own estate, or is dangerous to himself or others if permitted to go at large, or is in such condition of mind or body as to be a fit subject for care and treatment in a hospital or asylum for the insane. But no person idiot from birth or who is afflicted with simple epilepsy shall be regarded as insane unless manifestations of abnormal excitability, violence, or homicidal or suicidal impulses are such as to render confinement in a hospital or asylum for the insane a proper precaution to prevent him from injuring himself or others. Section 2 provides that no insane person or person supposed to be insane, who shall not have been legally adjudged to be insane, shall by reason of his insanity or supposed insanity be restrained of his liberty, provided that the section shall not be construed to forbid temporary detention of an alleged lunatic for a reasonable time, not exceeding 10 days, pending a judicial investigation of his mental condition. The act prescribes the procedure for obtaining legal authority to restrain insane persons, and provides penalties for their detention contrary to the provisions of the act.

We do not agree that the instruction quoted correctly states the law; but, even if it did, the facts proved did not bring the case within the rule. The proof did not show plaintiff was insane or that her mental condition was such as to require her to be placed under restraint to prevent her from injuring hereself or others. Before she was removed to the sanitarium she had nursed her husband about 10 days. The strain told on her nerves, and she was no doubt to some extent more excitable than under normal conditions. After Ada Crawford took charge of nursing the husband plaintiff would occasionally go to his room to see him, and the nurse claimed the visits were injurious to the patient. The nurse said plaintiff did the cooking, with the help of her daughter in the evening; that one evening plaintiff had a nervous...