Failure to Discharge Safely: How New York Courts Evaluate Psychiatric Discharge Decisions in Malpractice Cases

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Psychiatric Malpractice

A patient is released from a psychiatric unit and, days later, harms himself or someone else. In hindsight the lawsuit writes itself. The forensic problem is harder: New York judges the discharge by what the clinician reasonably knew at the moment of release, not by the outcome that followed. The judgment New York protects, and the judgment it does not A failure-to-discharge-safely claim is ordinary medical malpractice dressed in psychiatric facts. The plaintiff must prove a departure from accepted psychiatric practice and that the departure proximately caused the injury, and in New York both elements ordinarily require expert testimony because the standard of care for releasing a psychiatri

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