Peterson v. State
| Decision Date | 18 August 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 5D99-1925.,5D99-1925. |
| Citation | 765 So.2d 861 |
| Parties | Lee Ellis PETERSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Barbara C. Davis, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Belle B. Schumann, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
Lee Peterson appeals from his conviction for the statutory offense of aggravated manslaughter of an elderly or disabled person, in connection with the death of his 82-year-old mother. Section 782.07(2), Florida Statutes, declares that a person who causes the death of an elderly or disabled person by culpable negligence, under circumstances set forth in section 825.102(3), commits aggravated manslaughter. Neglect of an elderly or disabled person is defined by section 825.102(3) as:
The statute also includes two lesser offenses:
We affirm.
Peterson's primary argument on appeal is that he bears no criminal liability in this case for the death of his mother because he never assumed any of her actual, physical care taking, and thus under the statute, he was not her "caregiver." The statute defines "caregiver" as:
`Caregiver' means a person who has been entrusted with or has assumed responsibility for the care or the property of an elderly person or disabled adult. `Caregiver' includes, but is not limited to relatives, court-appointed or voluntary guardians, adult household members, neighbors, health care providers, and employees and volunteers of facilities as defined in subsection (7).
§ 825.101(2), Fla. Stat.
We think the evidence in this case was sufficient to establish a breach of duty owed by Peterson under the statute, as a "caregiver," as well as under the common law. The facts in this case are as egregious as those described by Justice Lewis in Sieniarecki v. State, 756 So.2d 68 (Fla. 2000), and the courts in People v. Simester, 287 Ill.App.3d 420, 222 Ill.Dec. 838, 678 N.E.2d 710 (1997) and Davis v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 230 Va. 201, 335 S.E.2d 375 (1985). An elderly, disabled and helpless person is left alone, awash in his or her own human wastes, with resulting bed sores so extensive and severe as to have culminated in life-threatening sepsis, and there is additional evidence that the person was malnourished to the point of starvation, and severely dehydrated, while occupying a room in a house where another adult family member, or members, reside. The result of the culpable neglect is death. A moral duty was clearly breached by the adult family members living in the house where the elderly person suffered such abject neglect, we all agree. But we also think a legal duty was breached, as those three cases concluded.1
In this case, two brothers, James and Lee Peterson (the appellant) shared a home with their mother (the deceased) for nineteen years. The house was owned jointly by Lee and his mother. Lee worked very long hours, and it was agreed between the brothers that James would do the physical cleaning, feeding, bed-changing, etc., for their mother. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and was cranky and hard to deal with. They also agreed that James would receive his mother's social security checks, deposit them in a joint account with himself and his mother, and from that account, pay all of the household expenses for the three of them, including the mortgage payment on the house.
During the last six months of Mrs. Peterson's life, she was not doing well. For the last two months, as Lee described her, all she could do was sit on the edge of her bed and try to read the newspaper, or look at the pictures. She was bedridden the last two weeks prior to her death. Lee testified he visited her almost every day, or evening when he got home.
According to the medical experts, Mrs. Peterson was probably immobilized in bed during the last two weeks of her life because she was severely constipated, due to dehydration. She had not had a bowel movement for two weeks prior to her death. This condition led to impaction of her colon, and its eventual rupture, which caused deadly peritonitis. She must have been in extreme pain. The colon ruptured at least two or three days before James called 911 and Mrs. Peterson was taken to the hospital. By then, she had less than a one percent chance to survive.
The police officers and the paramedics who went to the Petersons' home testified as to the horrendous condition of Mrs. Peterson's living circumstances. It was very hot in her room, there was no air conditioning, and no windows were open. The odor in the house and, in particular in her room from human waste, made them ill. The carpet was stained with human waste and feces. The mattress was soaked through with urine, sagging almost to the floor. Mrs. Peterson had been lying in a deep indentation in the mattress contaminated with urine and feces. This had caused her bed sores to reach an extreme state of ulceration. At trial, medical experts testified it would have taken several weeks for bed sores to have become as extensive and severe as hers were, at the time of her death.
Lee argues that he, as opposed to James,2 could not be found to have violated section 825.102(3) because he took no active role with regard to his mother's care, and thus was not a "caregiver." This is too narrow an interpretation of the term "caregiver." "Caregiver" logically encompasses more than just the person or persons who do the actual physical work of caring for an elderly or disabled adult. It also reaches those who in fact are "entrusted" with the responsibility for seeing that an elderly or disabled adult is being cared for in a proper and humane manner.
The facts in this case established that Mrs. Peterson was a completely helpless, disabled elderly person, in the custody of her two sons. They also were in fact entrusted with her property (her social security income and her house). They agreed between themselves that James would do the actual work of caring for her. That did not excuse Lee from the duty of overseeing James' care. The jury had a basis to conclude James was culpably negligent, and in turn, Lee must have known about it.
People v. Simester is factually close to this case. There the husband of a niece who had undertaken to care for her elderly uncle in their household, was held criminally liable for the uncle's death, when the uncle died due to starvation and dehydration suffered in their home. The niece in that case, had, as James did in this case, done the physical labor (such as it was) in caring for the uncle. The statute in Illinois is worded differently than the Florida statute in this case, but in our view, they mean the same thing.
The Illinois statute defines "caregiver" as one who has a duty to provide for an elderly person's health and personal care at the person's place of residence, including relatives who reside in the same residence.3 The Illinois court held that the husband was a caregiver because he resided in the same household as the deceased, whether he undertook the physical labor of taking care of the uncle. Although the court did not elaborate on whether the husband had a caretaking duty, it assumed he did. The Florida statute has truly parallel provisions. A caregiver is defined as one "entrusted with ... the care or property of an elderly, or disabled person," and the term includes "adult household members."
Sieniarecki has less relevance to Lee's liability in this case. Sieniarecki upheld the criminal liability of a daughter, who like James, had assumed actual physical care of her disabled mother, who was living in her household. It did not deal with the duty or criminal liability under the statute of another adult member of the household.
However, the court speculated about whether a common law duty exists, pre-dating the statutory one imposed by section 825.102(3). In footnote two on page nine of its opinion, the court infers that such duties do exist by citing with approval Personal Representative of Estate of Starling v. Fisherman's Pier, Inc., 401 So.2d 1136 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), rev. denied, 411 So.2d 381 (Fla.1981). That case held that a property owner may have a duty to take some minimal steps to safeguard an invitee on his premises from extreme danger, even where the invitee through his own negligence, has allowed himself to be...
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