Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A Georgia appellate court held that a hospital and its physicians were not liable for the death of an autistic patient who choked while living at the personal care facility where the hospital had transferred him eight months before.

Michael Smith, an adult with severe autism, was sent to Grady Hospital for medical and psychological evaluations. After his treatment concluded, the hospital sent Smith to a personal care facility. He lived there for about eight months until he died after choking on food he had taken from another resident’s plate.

Smith’s aunt, on behalf of his estate, sued the hospital, Emory University School of Medicine, and two treating physicians, alleging that the misconduct of hospital medical staff led to Smith’s choking death. The plaintiff asserted that the defendants had negligently sent Smith to the care home, which was not an appropriate placement for him. The defense moved successfully for summary judgment.

Affirming, the appellate court noted that the plaintiff has the burden of proving that the defendants’ discharge decision was the proximate cause of Smith’s death. Citing case law, the court found that the general rule of proximate cause holds that a wrongdoer is not responsible for a consequence that is merely possible according to occasional experience. Proximate causation attaches where a consequence becomes probable according to ordinary and usual experience. Here, the court found that Smith’s choking injury was too causally remote from the hospital discharge decision the defendants had made eight months before Smith’s death. That Smith choked on food taken from another resident’s plate is not the natural and probable consequence of the defendants’ discharge decision, the court said.

Consequently, the court concluded that summary judgment had been proper.

Citation: Arnold v. Turbow, 2020 WL 5757061 (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 28, 2020).