Muse v. Charter Hospital of Winston-Salem, Inc.
Court of Appeals of North Carolina
452 S.E.2d 589 (1995)
Sixteen-year-old Joe Muse was hospitalized for depression and suicidal thoughts at Charter Hospital (defendant); when his insurance expired, his physician Dr. Barnhill asked the hospital to keep him two extra days (with a signed parental promissory note) to get blood test results needed to properly dose his medication, but the hospital discharged Joe before the results even came back and he was referred only to outpatient care. About two weeks later, Joe fatally overdosed on prescribed medication, and his parents (plaintiffs) sued for wrongful death; a jury found the hospital negligent for its insurance-based discharge policy interfering with physicians' medical judgment, and awarded substantial compensatory and punitive damages against both the hospital and its parent corporation, prompting the defendants' appeal.
Whether a hospital has a duty to a patient not to have a policy or procedure in which the patient is discharged upon expiration of his insurance against the better judgment of the treating physician.