Every year, thousands of families experience the devastating loss of a loved one to suicide. Unfortunately, many suicides occur because mental health facilities, hospitals, or behavioral treatment facilities fail to provide proper care. Families that have lost their loved one while that person was receiving professional treatment may be able to bring a wrongful death lawsuit for suicide.
The answer to whether you can pursue a wrongful death case for suicide isn't always straightforward. We've found that pressure from corporate entities and private equity to cut costs is often to blame for suicide. Too often, facilities leave vulnerable people alone and unsupervised, and this type of negligence creates opportunities for tragedy.
When mental health facilities fail to conduct required observation rounds or safety checks, and when they fail to maintain a secure environment, bad things happen. These facilities can and should be held accountable for the resulting tragedies.
When is Suicide Grounds for a Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
Not every suicide qualifies for a wrongful death lawsuit. However, when healthcare providers or treatment facilities breach their duty of care, families have the right to seek compensation. A wrongful death suicide lawsuit typically arises when professionals who were responsible for protecting vulnerable individuals fail to take reasonable precautions that could have prevented the tragedy.
In our investigations, we frequently uncover patterns of wrongful acts or negligence that directly contribute to patient suicides. Facilities accepting payment to provide round-the-clock supervision often leave patients unattended for hours. Staff members falsify observation logs, claiming they performed required checks when surveillance footage proves otherwise.
These aren't isolated incidents. Rather, they represent systemic failures that put profits ahead of patient safety.
The Key to a Successful Wrongful Death Case
To successfully pursue a wrongful death claim for suicide, your wrongful death lawyer must establish four critical elements:
- Duty of Care: The facility or healthcare provider owed a legal obligation to protect the deceased person from foreseeable harm, including self-harm. When a person is under the care of a facility, the facility almost certainly owes a duty to that person.
- Breach of Duty: The facility failed to provide reasonable care through action or inaction. Typically, the breach of duty will involve actions or inactions that stem from understaffing or inadequate training, like missing observation rounds or failing to remove dangerous items from a room.
- Causation: This breach directly enabled or contributed to the suicide. Here, the situation we most often see is a staff member will fail to check in on a person, which gives that person the time and the opportunity to harm themselves.
- Damages: The death resulted in measurable losses for surviving family members. Every family that loses their loved one has suffered immeasurable damages.
When Mental Health Facilities Can Be Held Liable
According to a 2018 study by the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, an estimated 49 to 65 inpatient suicides occur annually in U.S. hospitals, with nearly 75% happening during psychiatric treatment. Mental health facilities and behavioral treatment facilities assume a special responsibility when they admit patients experiencing suicidal ideation or mental health crises. When they take on a suicidal person, their entire purpose is to make sure that person is safe and secure. That's what families pay these facilities to do.
Families routinely pay these facilities tens of thousands of dollars per month to provide protective supervision and treatment. A facility that fails in these basic duties can face liability through a wrongful death claim. When the facility's purpose is to prevent vulnerable people from committing suicide, families need to hold them accountable when a person commits suicide while in their care.
Common Forms of Facility Negligence
In our experience investigating these cases, certain types of negligence appear more often than others. Some of the most common types of negligence we see that leads to suicide are the following:
Inadequate Supervision and Monitoring
Facilities routinely fail to conduct required 15-minute or 30-minute safety checks. We've reviewed surveillance footage showing patients left alone for hours before their deaths, despite documentation claiming regular observations occurred. Accordingly, we usually need to perform a thorough investigation to get to the truth.
Unqualified Staff
Many facilities hire behavioral health technicians with no education or experience in a psychiatric setting. The facilities often pay them near minimum wage and give them impossible tasks to perform. Facilities routinely task these untrained individuals with monitoring multiple suicidal patients, which is often a responsibility they're completely unqualified to handle.
Unsafe Environments
Facilities fail to remove or secure items that patients could use for self-harm. We've seen cases where suicidal patients had access to items that they could use to harm themselves, like bed sheets, shoelaces, glass bottles, toilet seats, and other dangerous items that should have been restricted in a psychiatric setting. Often times, the issue is that suicidal people were placed in the wrong room for their diagnosis and suicide risk.
Premature Discharge
Insurance companies often dictate treatment length rather than medical necessity. When coverage expires, facilities discharge patients who are still actively suicidal, leading to preventable deaths. The danger of premature discharge cannot be overstated.
Recent research analyzing over 615,000 psychiatric discharges found that within just 90 days of discharge, approximately 2.15 out of every 1,000 discharged patients died by suicide. The risk is highest immediately after discharge, with suicide rates reaching 2,713 deaths per 100,000 person-years within the first week. These sobering statistics demonstrate why proper discharge planning and continued monitoring are literally matters of life and death.
Medication Mismanagement
Improper prescribing, failure to monitor side effects, or abrupt medication changes can increase suicide risk. Some medications actually heighten suicidal thoughts, yet facilities fail to provide adequate monitoring during these critical periods.
Research published in The BMJ found that certain antidepressants significantly increase suicide risk, with rates of attempted suicide or self-harm over one year ranging from 1.02% for amitriptyline to nearly 3% for venlafaxine. Despite these known risks, facilities often fail to closely monitor patients during the critical early weeks of antidepressant treatment when suicide risk peaks.
The Difference Between Medical Malpractice and Ordinary Negligence
Understanding whether your case involves medical malpractice or ordinary negligence is crucial for determining the legal process. Many lawyers mistakenly assume all facility deaths require compliance with Florida's complex medical malpractice procedures under Chapter 766. However, we've successfully argued that failures in basic supervision and security constitute ordinary negligence, avoiding these additional requirements.
Medical malpractice applies when the negligence involves medical judgment—such as improper medication prescribing, misdiagnosis, or inadequate treatment planning by psychiatrists or medical professionals. Essentially, medical malpractice rules apply when the lawsuit alleges that medical errors caused harm or death.
Ordinary negligence covers non-medical failures like inadequate staffing, failure to conduct safety checks, or maintaining an unsafe environment. These are issues that don't require medical training or understanding. For example, we don't need a doctor to explain the importance of checking on someone every 30 minutes.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Lawsuit for Suicide?
Florida law specifically outlines who can file a claim when someone dies as a result of a facility's negligence. The personal representative of the estate brings the wrongful death suit on behalf of eligible survivors. Typically, the court will appoint the personal representative.
The personal representative brings the wrongful death lawsuit and acts as the named plaintiff. Their purpose is to act on behalf of the deceased person's estate and surviving family members. Surviving family members entitled to compensation often include following:
- Spouse
- Children
- Parents
- Blood relatives who were dependent on the deceased for support
Each category of survivor may be entitled to different types of damages based on their relationship with the deceased. Additionally, the deceased's survivors can determine which people are entitled to compensation.
Compensation Available in Wrongful Death Suicide Cases
When facilities' negligence contributes to a suicide, surviving family members may recover various forms of compensation. The law typically divides damages into economic damages and non-economic damages.
Economic Damages
- Medical bills incurred before death
- Funeral and burial expenses
- Loss of financial support and future earnings
- Loss of benefits
- Value of lost services and support
Non-Economic Damages
- Pain and suffering of the deceased (from injury to death)
- Mental pain and suffering of survivors
- Loss of companionship and guidance
- Loss of parental companionship (for minor children)
- Emotional distress of family members
The statute of limitations for filing a wrongful death claim in Florida is generally two years from the date of death. However, certain circumstances may affect this timeline. Accordingly, families should consult with a law firm experienced in these cases as soon as possible.
How a Facility's Negligence Can Lead to Suicide
In our experience investigating these tragic cases, we've seen how negligent facilities create opportunities for vulnerable patients to harm themselves. Understanding these methods is crucial for families seeking answers and for facilities that should be preventing these deaths.
Hanging and Strangulation
People often commit suicide by hanging or strangulation in mental health facilities. They often use items that should never be accessible to them in a psychiatric setting. When left unsupervised, patients may use common items to harm themselves, including bed sheets, shoelaces, belts, or clothing. We've handled cases where patients had hours alone in their rooms with these materials, despite being on suicide watch.
Overdose
Overdoses occur when facilities fail to properly secure and administer medications. Patients accumulate doses by pretending to swallow pills, or they gain access to medication storage areas due to lax security. Some facilities allow patients to keep personal medications without proper monitoring.
Sharp Objects
Sharp objects present another preventable risk. Glass bottles, razors, broken fixtures, or smuggled items become weapons for self-harm when facilities fail to maintain secure environments or conduct proper room searches. For example, in one case we handled, we learned that a patient attempted suicide using a broken glass bottle that contained essential oils.
Escape or Elopement
Some patients escape from facilities with inadequate security and complete suicide outside. We've seen cases involving broken fences, unsecured windows, faulty door systems, and non-functioning alarms that allowed vulnerable individuals to leave undetected. We have also handled cases where security was so inadequate that patients were able to walk out of the facility unnoticed.
Heights and Falls
Access to heights poses risks in multi-story facilities. Unsecured windows, roof access, or unmonitored stairwells provide opportunities when staff aren't conducting required checks.
In each of these scenarios, proper supervision, environmental safety measures, and adherence to protocols could prevent tragedy. Facilities can prevent these types of incidents. They're predictable results of systemic negligence.
These deaths do not happen unless facilities provide people with the time and opportunity to harm themselves. That's why understaffing and failures to conduct observation checks are so dangerous in this context.
Proving Negligence in Suicide Cases
Establishing liability in a death case involving suicide requires thorough investigation and compelling evidence. Facilities and their insurance companies aggressively defend these claims. They typically argue that the patient's mental illness, not the facility's negligence, caused the death. In our experience, the steps below can be critical to success:
Documentation Review
Observation logs, medical records, incident reports, and internal communications are key sources of information. Reviewing these documents and files is how we uncover falsified records, missing records, and ignored warning signs.
Surveillance Analysis
Security footage is critical evidence in these types of cases. This surveillance footage can (and often does) tell a story that contradicts what the facility claims happened. Facilities will do anything they can to prevent us from seeing the footage. We often have to fight to get a copy of the footage or prove that the facility destroyed it.
Expert Testimony
In medical malpractice cases, doctors and mental health professionals establish the standard of care. In ordinary negligence cases, facility experts and security experts can provide testimony regarding proper facility safety standards and security measures.
Pattern Evidence
Previous violations, complaints, or similar incidents at the facility demonstrate systemic negligence rather than isolated mistakes. Facilities often have prior deaths or suicides on their properties, and this can be strong evidence of negligence.
Staff Interviews
Former employees often provide crucial testimony about understaffing, inadequate training, or pressure to falsify records. These brave people can be extremely helpful for families seeking justice. Former employees often want the truth to come out, and they want justice for families who have lost their loved ones.
Ultimately, proving negligence in suicide cases boils down to a few core issues. First, we need to be able to show that the facility knew or should have known that the person was suicidal. We may also need to show that the facility's negligence provided the decedent with the time and opportunity to commit suicide.
What is the Statute of Limitations for a Wrongful Death Suicide Case?
In Florida, the statute of limitations for filing a wrongful death lawsuit is two years from the date of death. Thus, families have two years to file a lawsuit, or they lose their right to seek justice forever. This is true regardless of how strong their case might be.
Each state has its own unique rules regarding the statute of limitations. For example, South Carolina allows three years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit. North Carolina has a two-year statute of limitations, similar to Florida. Tennessee provides just one year from the date of death to file a lawsuit, making it one of the shortest deadlines in the nation.
Beyond the filing deadline, time is also critical for preserving evidence. Facilities may destroy or alter records once they anticipate legal action. For example, facilities often lose, destroy, or overwrite surveillance footage within days or weeks of the incident. Additionally, over time, witnesses move, memories fade, and crucial evidence disappears.
The law can punish facilities that destroy or lose evidence, which can cost them money. Accordingly, the best way to protect your rights is to get a lawyer involved at the earliest opportunity.
Why Families Should Pursue These Cases
Pursuing a wrongful death case serves a larger purpose. These lawsuits force negligent facilities to face consequences for putting profits over patient safety. Lawsuits make examples of careless and dishonest facilities. They also encourage other facilities to improve staffing, training, and safety measures.
In our experience, facilities only change when financially forced to do so. Every successful lawsuit makes these facilities think twice before cutting corners on patient care. Ultimately, every wrongful death suicide case could save lives by preventing future tragedies and holding negligent facilities accountable.
For example, we have handled cases where facilities did not report a death to the proper state agencies. They did not bother to report the death because they did not think anyone was going to sue them. They broke the rules because they knew that a lawsuit was the only way their actions would be brought to light. This is not uncommon, and it highlights how important it is for families to hold negligent facilities accountable.
How Our Law Firm Can Help
At Spetsas Buist, we understand the unique challenges of bringing a wrongful death lawsuit for suicide. We have successfully handled cases that many other firms rejected, and we have gotten answers and justice for families that nearly lost hope. Getting people justice and closure after the death of their loved one drives our commitment to these cases.
In cases of suicide at facilities, the investigation is critical. People with authority often put pressure on employees to hide or change evidence. Thus, a thorough investigation is necessary, and this often includes some of the following:
- Obtaining and analyzing all facility records
- Reviewing surveillance footage and observation logs
- Interviewing former staff members and witnesses
- Consulting with facility or mental health experts
- Identifying patterns of negligence and regulatory violations
- Identifying and deposing those individuals in charge of making decisions that ultimately trickle down and cause death
We know that no amount of money can bring back your loved one. However, when you hold negligent facilities accountable, it helps ensure that other families don't suffer the same devastating loss.
We don't have the authority to put any of these people in jail or take away their freedom. The only way we can change their behavior is by hitting their bottom line. Making them pay for their reckless behavior is the only way we can make these facilities safer. Accordingly, a wrongful death lawsuit is often the only way to bring a facility's negligence to light.
Contact a Wrongful Death Suicide Lawyer at Our Office
If you lost a loved one to suicide while they were under professional care, please don't assume nothing can be done. Many families don't realize they have legal options when facilities fail to prevent these tragedies. The facilities count on your grief and confusion to avoid accountability.
We help families get answers, and we help them get the truth about what happened to their loved one. Families deserve to know whether proper supervision and care could have prevented tragedy. Most importantly, they deserve justice if negligence played a role in their loved one's death.
Call us today at 321-LAWSUIT to speak with an experienced wrongful death lawyer about your case. We offer free consultations to evaluate your situation, and we only get paid when we recover money for you.
These cases are about a betrayal of trust. People and their families trust these facilities to keep them safe during their most vulnerable moments. When a facility betrays that trust through negligence or recklessness, we'll fight tirelessly to help you hold them accountable.
Together, we can seek justice and push for meaningful changes that protect others. We can shape an industry responsible for caring for the most vulnerable people in our society.