People v. Hudson

• Decision Date: 29 August 2000
• Docket Number: Docket No. 218497.
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Karen HUDSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

615 N.W.2d 784

241 Mich. App. 268

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Karen HUDSON, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 218497.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted November 10, 1999, at Lansing.

Decided May 26, 2000, at 9:05 a.m.

Released for Publication August 29, 2000.

Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and David G. Edick, Assistant Attorney General, for the people.

Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge (by Richard C. Kraus), East Lansing, for the defendant.

Before: SAWYER, P.J., and HOOD and WHITBECK, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Following a preliminary examination, the district court bound defendant Karen Hudson over for trial on one count of second-degree vulnerable adult abuse, M.C.L. § 750.145n(2); MSA 28.342A(n)(2), a felony. The circuit court denied Hudson's subsequent motion to quash the bindover. This Court granted Hudson leave to appeal. We reverse.

I. Basic Facts

Hudson is a nurse.¹ In 1995, she worked at the Greenery Health Care Center, a long-term-care facility, in Howell. Eighty-five-year-old Mary Parle began living at the Greenery in June 1995 after physicians determined that she had insulin-dependent diabetes and vascular dementia. Parle's health conditions occasionally caused her to become agitated and aggressive. During these episodes, she would hit, pinch, kick, or slap staff and other residents at the Greenery. Consequently, Greenery staff initially used restraints with her, typically without physician approval or other authorization.² Those restraints included a reclining chair known as a geri-chair,³ a chair with a vest restraint, and a chair with a nonskid pad. However, Parle was able to escape each of these restraints and, in doing so, had a history of injuring herself. For instance, in mid-July 1995, Parle fell out of her bed while trying to climb over the side rails even though she was medicated. In early August 1995, Greenery staff found Parle sitting on the floor in front of her wheelchair with a soft belt restraint untied and wound around her neck. Later that same year, in mid-September, staff found Parle walking around the facility with her wheelchair attached to her by a belt restraint. After the state cited the facility for excessively using restraints on Parle,⁴ her doctor ordered Greenery staff to discontinue using all restraints on her. Instead, the doctor directed the staff to "supply 1:1 supervision/redirection if necessary."

The roof over the E-wing, where Parle resided, leaked from October 2 through 5, 1995. In order to manage the water flowing into the building from the roof, Greenery staff placed buckets and towels in the hallway. Water, nevertheless, remained on the floor. The nursing notes for the day shift on October 5 indicate that, despite this hazard, staff saw Parle walking around the facility, going into other patients' rooms, and trying to sleep in their beds that day. Bonnie Schuler, a licensed practical nurse in charge of the night shift for E-wing and part of D-wing, learned that at about 11:00 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. Parle was wandering the halls again, and this time she was walking into other patients' rooms and slapping them. Schuler later explained that she believed that Parle was a threat to the other residents. However, she could not supervise Parle because she had to administer a treatment for another patient, which would take nearly an hour to perform, and the Greenery was understaffed. With no one available to supervise Parle, Schuler decided to restrain Parle in a geri-chair with a tray top in the hallway across from the nurses' station near the intersection of wings D and E. Schuler neither sought physician approval for her decision nor documented her decision or reasoning in Parle's chart at the time she restrained Parle.⁵

About thirty minutes after Schuler restrained Parle and began treating the other resident, an aide told Schuler that Parle had fallen. Schuler found Parle on the floor of the D-wing hallway in view of the nurses' station. Despite the leaky roof, this area was, evidently, dry and unobstructed. Parle, who was wearing slippers, was lying on her right side when Schuler and the aide helped her up from the floor. The nurses placed her in a wheelchair and took her to her room. After assessing Parle's condition, Schuler went back to the nurses' station and questioned Hudson about the incident. Hudson stated that she had released Parle from her restraints. When Schuler asked why Hudson did not check with her first, Hudson reportedly stated that when she came on duty the only person she saw was another nurse who had been known to restrain patients without good reason and there was no one around with whom she could consult about the proper course of action.

Parle went to the hospital the next day. X-rays indicated that Parle had broken her hip in the fall. She stayed in the hospital until mid-October 1995, and when she returned to the Greenery, staff members had to feed her with a tube. Parle could no longer walk and seldom talked. She died several months after her accident.

II. Procedural History

Initially, the prosecutor charged Hudson with one felony count of second-degree vulnerable adult abuse, M.C.L. § 750.145n(2); MSA 28.342A(n)(2), and two counts of alteration or destruction of patient medical records, M.C.L. § 750.492a; MSA 28.760(1). The prosecutor later voluntarily dismissed one of the counts relating to medical record alteration or destruction.

At the preliminary examination, the district court outlined its view of the sufficiency of the evidence required to bind over a criminal defendant for trial:

The parties are not really disputing the quantum of evidence which is required stated differently from perhaps authorities noted that the people have to show probable cause to believe the offense occurred and probable cause exist [s] to believe defendant did it. And if there is a jury submissable issue, if the evidence does not show beyond a reasonable doubt, that is if there's less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that's still a jury submissable issue. But there has to be evidence on each element of each offense.

The district court then held that the prosecutor had provided sufficient evidence to meet the probable cause standard on the second-degree vulnerable adult abuse count but not on the remaining count concerning alteration of a record. Explaining its decision on the second-degree vulnerable adult abuse count, the district court stated:

Now as to count one, the—the status of Miss Hudson as a covered—a person addressed by the statute is not disputed and that's certainly established. And the harm being a broken hip, being sufficiently serious, is not disputed. I appreciate the—there—there may be some reasons why a jury might think about this and might not have seen this particular fracture or the fall, but for this— for this record, I don't think that's disputed. But ... whether this was a reckless act or a reckless failure to act and whether there was a cause in the sense required by the statute are the two grounds argued and argued most forcefully. With respect I disagree with Mr. Kraus [Hudson's counsel], not as to merely the release, but the release under the conditions present, which were of two important parts. That is that the facility was in disrepair because of the water and the confusion going on and because I believe there's evidence to show that the victim, Miss Parle, was in an agitated state. And I think that's a fair inference for a jury to draw related to the evidence here. When—when I don't think that the release in and of itself is the—is the gravamen of the act. It's the release without making appropriate assurance of there to be proper supervision, and—and I think it is those two things together.

With respect to Mr. Kraus' review of the nursing progress report, or set of reports, exhibit eighteen, I think there is sufficient evidence of Miss Parle being a fall risk in an agitated state to require this ongoing supervision. The decision to release I think had to factor into it problems with whether there was improper restraint versus what sort of safeguards, if any, would be taken upon release. And I think the flooded condition and obstructions and so on were all part of that decision. And would require, upon release, there to be a sufficient supervision to assure that she wouldn't fall. Instead there was no supervision at all, that I can see so, it's a combination of an act and a failure to act that meet[s] ... what I think, again, as I identified appropriately is deliberate disregard. I think it was more than a mistake. I don't hold Mr. Edick [the prosecutor] to just that comment. I think it was more than a mistake, again, not just the release itself, but the release and the failure to supervise until some other nursing staff assuredly had Miss Parle's care back in hand.

Hudson moved in the circuit court to quash the bindover order and to dismiss the information. The circuit court denied this motion, stating:

There are four facts which are decisive, and I am going to say to you that it's a close question. Fact number one is that the defendant removed the restraints upon the patient without taking any action to learn who had put the restraints on or why, according to the record before the district judge. Fact number two, that the plaintiff's fall—the patient's fall occurred 20 feet from the wheelchair, according to the record. In other words, this patient was allowed to move 20 feet from a wheelchair, and there is no evidence that anybody saw her or personally supervised her during the time that it took her to move that 20 feet. So she definitely was not meaningfully supervised. Fact number three, the patient had at least two prior falls and, fact number four, the existence of notes indicating that in order to ambulate independently, this patient should have sturdy shoes, which she definitely did not have on that night.

So I feel there was

...