Torrey v. Riverside Sanitarium

• Decision Date: 11 April 1916
• Citation: 163 Wis. 71,157 N.W. 552
• Parties: TORREY v. RIVERSIDE SANITARIUM.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

163 Wis. 71

157 N.W. 552

TORREY

v.RIVERSIDE SANITARIUM.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

April 11, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Milwaukee County; W. J. Turner, Judge.

Action by Francis Torrey against the Riverside Sanitarium. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Personal injuries. The following facts appeared on the trial: The defendant is a corporation maintaining a private sanitarium for the treatment of persons afflicted with nervous and mental diseases or drug habits in the village of East Milwaukee; the building being about three blocks from the house of the plaintiff. On November 16, 1913, the defendant received as an inmate one Ralph Kennan, a young man 28 years of age, on the request of Dr. A. W. Gray, who was Kennan's medical adviser; during the forenoon of that day, and prior to receiving the patient, Dr. Studley, the defendant's general superintendent, received information from Dr. Gray as to Kennan's general condition to the effect that he seemed to be in a confused state of mind, and had certain obsessions of a bodily character, principally to the effect that his heart was weak, and that his stomach was going to fall out of the anterior abdominal wall. Dr. Gray further told Dr. Studley that these obsessions had existed for two days, that there had been no occasion to suspect mental aberration before that time, but that he wanted the patient under observation to determine whether his mental condition was a mere brain trouble, or the result of some acute disease like typhoid fever coming on. During the afternoon of that day the patient voluntarily came to the institution accompanied by a male relative. He gave his own history to Dr. Studley, described the ideas which he had, and appeared to be normal and unusually intelligent. Dr. Studley made a physical and neurological examination of the patient, and caused him to be put to bed in a room in the so-called observation department where the doors are not locked and where active mental cases are not kept, gave directions as to his diet, and as to hydrotherapeutic and massage treatments. Both day and night nurses, of which there were several in the department, were directed to converse with him frequently and report anything strange or peculiar which he said or did. On the 17th the patient seemed to the nurse to be perfectly normal in his conversation, cheerful and gentle. Dr. Studley visited and talked with him several times that day. About midnight of that day he got up and dressed and left the institution without permission and without the knowledge of the night nurse, went down town to the city of Milwaukee, and returned at about 6 o'clock a. m. on the morning of the 18th. When Dr. Studley was informed of this at about 9 o'clock a. m. he visited the patient, who was in bed, and talked with him a time. No details of the midnight trip are given, but it does not appear that the patient's conduct or conversation was violent or abnormal during the trip or afterwards. Dr. Studley, after talking with the patient, determined to transfer him from his room on the ground floor to a department on the second floor called the men's hall, where the windows are guarded with screens so as to prevent escape. Dr. Studley told the patient that he wished to prevent any recurrence like that, and that he desired to transfer him to another department, to which the patient assented without objection, and said, “All right.” He got out of bed, and with his underclothes on and a blanket thrown over him was conducted by a bath attendant from his room up a stairway toward the men's hall. He seemed...