- Jurisdiction
- Texas
I was admitted to a mental hospital in May. I was treated horribly and various rights of mine were violated. Of course, all of this is "he said/she said" and since I was a mental patient, my word isn't as highly regarded as theirs's. I can't believe the treatment I received. I worked as a registered nurse, so I am very aware of rights, procedure and ethics. I took copious notes of the abuses there. Since I was adamant about my rights, I was even more of a target by the disgruntled and overworked staff. This led to me being placed under and Order of Protective Custody which was drafted based on falsehoods and exaggerations in nursing notes (again, the staff was abusive and malicious, specifically the weekend night's staff). On my pre-trial hearing, they did NOT allow me to see my lawyer, which is against the law and he would likely have urged them to drop the case as I truly did not meet criteria. During my pre-trial hearing, they perjured themselves when their legal liaison said under oath that I "was refusing psychotropic medications", which was untrue. This set me up to be held against my will as it painted a picture to the judge of non-compliance and I was committed. I was able to call the ethics line, and I spoke to the CNO, who apologized to me and stated, "she mis-spoke, we didn't mean to commit perjury". The legal liaison who was in charge of the pre-trial hearing has no medical background (not an RN or hold any medical licensure).
These two obvious mis-steps, 1) not allowing me to see my lawyer prior to hearing and 2) committed perjury which can be proven through my medication record, set me up to be held against my will, incur further abuse, was assaulted by another patient, etc. My case is so messed up that my court-appointed attorney for the hearing, has spoken to the county attorney and is working on getting the commitment expunged off my record pro-bono as he felt I was very much wronged. He's done this work for a long time and has never taken these steps, but he saw all the flaws of the way my case was handled.
My question is, do I have a case to sue for damages? I am left mentally and emotionally scarred after the treatment I received. The facility is owned by a large corporation, operating 250+ facilities, as I understand it. I took copious notes from my time there, as I was very bored and quite alarmed by the behaviors I witnessed.
These two obvious mis-steps, 1) not allowing me to see my lawyer prior to hearing and 2) committed perjury which can be proven through my medication record, set me up to be held against my will, incur further abuse, was assaulted by another patient, etc. My case is so messed up that my court-appointed attorney for the hearing, has spoken to the county attorney and is working on getting the commitment expunged off my record pro-bono as he felt I was very much wronged. He's done this work for a long time and has never taken these steps, but he saw all the flaws of the way my case was handled.
My question is, do I have a case to sue for damages? I am left mentally and emotionally scarred after the treatment I received. The facility is owned by a large corporation, operating 250+ facilities, as I understand it. I took copious notes from my time there, as I was very bored and quite alarmed by the behaviors I witnessed.
