Harris v. Harris County Hospital Dist.

• Decision Date: 06 October 1977
• Docket Number: No. 16881,16881
• Citation: 557 S.W.2d 353
• Parties: Izora HARRIS et al., Appellants, v. HARRIS COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT, Appellee. (1st Dist.)
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 353

557 S.W.2d 353

Izora HARRIS et al., Appellants, v. HARRIS COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT, Appellee.

No. 16881.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.).

Oct. 6, 1977.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 10, 1977.

Jamail & Gano, John Gano, Houston, for appellants.

Joe Resweber, County Atty., Oliver J. Guiberteau, Asst. County Atty., Houston, for appellee.

EVANS, Justice.

Carlos Harris sued the Harris County Hospital District, alleging severe personal injury as a result of the District's negligence while he was hospitalized at the District's Ben Taub General Hospital. After Harris was admitted to the psychiatric ward of the hospital for observation and treatment he escaped by knocking out two plexiglass window panes in the ward's entrance doors. He ran to another wing of the hospital, climbed through an outside window to the roof, and fell three floors to the ground, injuring his back. The jury found Harris' damages to be in the amount of $100,000.00, but did not find the Hospital District was negligent in failing to maintain the plexiglass windows in such condition as would prevent Harris' escape.

Harris had the burden of establishing the negligence of the Hospital District. His four points of error raise only the questions of whether the evidence conclusively established the Hospital District's negligence and whether the jury's verdict is so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to require that the cause be remanded for a new trial.

The negligence issue submitted by the court and the jury's response are as follows:

"Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the failure of the Hospital District to maintain the plexiglass windows in the doors to the psychiatric ward in such condition as would prevent Carlos Harris from escaping the ward, was negligence?"

"We do not."

The trial court defined the term negligence as meaning a failure on the part of the Hospital District "to use that degree of care and skill ordinarily used by a hospital of the same general type in the same or a similar community in which the hospital was located at the time in question under the same or similar circumstances."

The incident occurred on June 30, 1972. Harris, then 18 years of age, was being treated for physical ailments by a local doctor who recommended to Harris' family that Harris be taken to Ben Taub Hospital for a mental examination. On the evening prior to Harris' escape from the ward, he was taken by his family to the psychiatric section of the hospital's emergency room where he was examined by an intern and given thorazine, a drug used to calm nervous or agitated persons. Harris was then examined by the staff psychiatrist on duty who, after talking with Harris and his family for some 30 to 45 minutes, noted that Harris had "disturbances in his thought processes", and made an initial diagnosis of "acute schizophrenic reaction". She then admitted Harris to the hospital for further observation and treatment.

The psychiatric ward at Ben Taub Hospital was located on the third floor of the hospital's south wing. At the entrance to the ward were two panel doors, one of which was always maintained in a fixed position by two sliding metal rods. The other door was permitted to swing, but it was always kept locked and could only be opened with keys distributed to the doctors and other hospital personnel authorized to enter the ward. Each door was about 3' wide and 7' high, and set in the upper half of each door was a rectangular unbreakable plexiglass window 18 X 28 in dimension. Each plexiglass window panel was held in the door frame by small strips of wooden molding. There were no steel bars or mesh across the plexiglass windows. The psychiatric ward at Ben Taub Hospital is the only locked, secured ward, other than the jail section on the top floor of the hospital. The ward was designed, constructed and operated so that patients who were placed in the ward were held in protective restraint, although their admission was voluntary and not the result of a court order. The purpose of the locked entrance doors was to keep the patients in the ward and unauthorized persons out.

The psychiatric ward was capable of holding twenty-seven mental patients at one time, and inside the ward were four seclusion rooms, each with a locking door, in which patients could be isolated. All windows within the ward were covered with a special steel mesh.

After Harris had been admitted to the ward he slept the remainder of the night in one of the unlocked seclusion rooms. The next day he stayed near the nurses station, but was returned to an unlocked seclusion room until lunch time. After lunch he returned to a seclusion room, where he remained until dinner time, and after dinner he again returned to the seclusion room.

Harris testified at the trial that on the first night of his hospitalization he had persuaded a small boy in the ward to get him a drink of water. This apparently caused another patient, who also wanted a drink of water, to become upset. The following day that patient grabbed Harris and beat his...