A common question is whether suicide can legally be considered a wrongful death. The answer is yes, particularly when a person is under the care of a facility or professional who knew or should have known that the individual was struggling with suicidal ideation. Mental health facilities open their doors specifically to treat and protect vulnerable individuals; they have a strict legal duty to keep them safe. When they fail to follow their own rules and a tragedy occurs, treatment facilities can be held civilly liable for negligence.
Ordinary Negligence vs. Medical Malpractice
In the context of a residential treatment center or behavioral health facility, liability typically splits into two distinct legal categories.
Ordinary Negligence
This applies to non-medical mistakes made by staff members who are not actively engaging in medical treatment. It is treated similarly to a standard premises liability case. Examples include a behavioral technician leaving their keys or electronic key card on a bench, allowing a patient to escape and harm themselves, or staff failing to perform mandatory 15-minute or 30-minute safety check rounds.
Psychiatric Malpractice Wrongful Death
This occurs when a medically trained professional ignores warning signs or deviates from accepted standards of care. Examples include a psychiatrist changing a patient's medication and ignoring clear adverse reactions, or discharging a patient far too early because their insurance coverage ran out.
Failure to Implement Standard Operating Procedures
A significant portion of ordinary negligence cases involves a facility's failure to audit the patient's environment for hazards. Facilities are required to follow strict standard operating procedures to ensure suicidal individuals do not have access to the means to harm themselves.
We routinely see tragic, preventable cases where staff members fail to look out for dangerous items, such as allowing shoelaces or sharp glass objects into a high-risk patient's room. If the facility undertakes the duty to protect a life and fails to enforce these basic safety protocols, the law provides a pathway for the family to seek justice.