Stuppy v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 03 August 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76-2004,76-2004
• Citation: 560 F.2d 373
• Parties: Ramoth STUPPY, Individually and as mother and natural guardian of Lance Stuppy and Jean Stuppy, minors, Appellee, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 373

560 F.2d 373

Ramoth STUPPY, Individually and as mother and natural guardian of Lance Stuppy and Jean Stuppy, minors, Appellee, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant.

No. 76-2004.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted May 18, 1977.

Decided Aug. 3, 1977.

Donald Etra (argued), and Atty., Civil Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., Rex E. Lee, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D. C., Bert C. Hurn, U. S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo., and Ronald R. Glancz and Walter A. Oleniewski, Washington, D. C., on brief, for appellant.

James L. Crabtree, Kansas City, Mo., on brief, for appellee. Crabtree also filed brief.

Before VAN OOSTERHOUT, Senior Circuit Judge, STEPHENSON and WEBSTER, Circuit Judges.

STEPHENSON, Circuit Judge.

The central issue on this appeal concerns plaintiff Stuppy's claim of negligence by agents of the defendant, the United States of America. The action below was brought pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act ¹ by Ramoth Stuppy, the widow of Charles E. Stuppy, who at the time of his death was a psychiatric patient at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Plaintiff-appellee Stuppy sought damages on her own behalf, as well as for her children, for injuries resulting from the alleged negligence of the agents of the defendant. A judgment of $50,000 was entered by the district court ² against the United States. Having concluded upon the record that plaintiff Stuppy has failed to establish her claim of negligence, we reverse the district court's damage award.

At approximately 9:00 a. m. on November 15, 1971, Charles Stuppy, upon the advice of his psychiatrist, drove to the Kansas City Veterans Administration Hospital where he voluntarily presented himself for admission. After an admission interview with a physician, Stuppy was classified as an "emergent" which qualified him for immediate admission. Upon his arrival in the psychiatric ward, Stuppy was strip-searched by a nursing aid. Shortly after lunch Stuppy called his wife to have her retrieve the automobile which he had earlier driven to the hospital. That afternoon, Stuppy was interviewed by the attending resident psychiatrist, who determined that Stuppy should be placed on "accompany status" in the ward for psychiatric patients. Accompany status required that a patient be in the company of a staff member or fellow patients at all times except when asleep.

That evening, Stuppy was escorted to dinner by the nursing staff and was eventually returned to the ward where he watched television. He retired to his room, which he shared with one other patient, at 10:30 p. m. At approximately 1:30 a. m. Stuppy's roommate informed the nurse's office that Stuppy had fallen out of his bed. Upon arrival by the hospital personnel, Stuppy was found lying on the floor of his room in a coma from which he never revived. He was transferred to the intensive care unit at the hospital and pronounced dead at approximately 5:00 a. m.

The pathology report indicated that Stuppy died from an overdose of desipramine or imipramine, both pharmacologically related drugs which are used as antidepressants. It was stipulated by the parties at trial that an overdose of drugs was ingested by Stuppy sometime after 4:00 p. m. on November 15, and sometime before 1:30 a. m. on November 16.

It was plaintiff's view of the evidence that the lethal overdose of the drugs was either negligently administered by the hospital, or the hospital allowed Stuppy access to the same in violation of its duty and its own standards and regulations. ³ The district court, however, found no evidence to support a finding "that a lethal dosage of the tricyclic drug was administered by hospital personnel accidentally or intentionally." In addition, the district court stated there was insufficient evidence to show conclusively that the pills were obtained directly from hospital supplies or from another patient. The district court did find that Stuppy brought the pills into the hospital on his person or in his effects and that the pills were not discovered during the strip-search or other admission procedures. The critical findings of the court were stated as follows:

Upon consideration, the Court finds and concludes that defendant's agents owed plaintiff's decedent the duty to search diligently for and seize any contraband including the subject medication. Further, the Court finds that defendant's agents breached this duty by allowing Mr. Stuppy to enter the hospital with contraband and that the breach was a proximate cause of his death.

In light of the entire record, we are not persuaded that Stuppy's entrance into the hospital with contraband is tantamount to a breach of the hospital's duty to diligently search and seize any contraband from him.

At the outset we note that the standard of care to which the defendant's agents must be held is governed by Missouri law. ⁴ In Stallman v. Robinson, 260 S.W.2d 743, 745 (Mo.1953), the Missouri Supreme Court stated that a mental hospital owed its patients the specific duty of exercising reasonable care to safeguard and protect them from self-injury as their known mental condition required. Several years later, in Gregory v. Robinson, 338 S.W.2d 88 (Mo.1960), the Missouri Supreme Court enunciated the hospital's standard of care as that of reasonable anticipation of the probability of self-inflicted harm.

Before the district court, Stuppy's counsel apparently argued for the invocation of the res ipsa loquitur theory while the government counsel argued that this theory was not amenable following Gregory and its progeny. The district court, however, found that the defendant's agents were negligent in their care of Stuppy under both the Stallman and Gregory standards in breaching the duty to search diligently by allowing Stuppy to enter the hospital with the contraband.

The record reflects that William Ivy's deposition taken on February 22, 1974, was read to the district court in which the search of Charles Stuppy was described. William Ivy was employed as a nursing assistant at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Kansas City and was the person who conducted the search of Stuppy's person and personal effects on the day of Stuppy's admission. Ivy related that the admissions procedure included a strip-search of the patients. This was necessary not only for confiscating any drugs and sharp instruments the patients may have...