Judge finds no violations of mental patients' rights (WA Post & Balt. Sun)

Judge finds no violations of mental patients' rights By Michael Scarcella Baltimore Sun Staff September 28, 2001 A lawsuit brought against the state by a dozen psychiatric patients claiming that institutionalization violated rights guaranteed them under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act was rejected yesterday by a U.S. District Court judge more than three years after the case was tried. The 12 plaintiffs - described as "traumatically brain injured" or "nonretarded developmentally disabled" - sought to be removed from state psychiatric facilities on grounds that they were not beneficial to treatment and violated their due process rights, said Philip J. Fornaci, executive director of the Maryland Disability Law Center, which represented them. "Psychiatric hospitals did not make them any better," Fornaci said last night. "They were regressing. They were being warehoused, not rehabilitated." The federal law states that no person with disabilities can be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, public services and programs. The plaintiffs argued that they were being denied community-based programs based on their disabilities, Fornaci said. The causes of their mental conditions included a head injury in a motorcycle accident, genetically based developmental disorders and a bacterial infection that led to severe brain damage. The state, in its defense, said the brain injuries incurred by the plaintiffs "have rendered them very difficult to care for" and that they had symptoms including "low frustration tolerance, proneness to irritability, [and] difficulty planning and directing behavior." Judge Catherine C. Blake's 84-page opinion noted that the trial lasted 32 days and that the case "raises complex medical, social and fiscal issues not easily addressed by litigation." She found that the plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence that community treatment was more beneficial and cost-effective than institutional care. "The plaintiffs' pain and frustration was genuine and understandable; the defendants' efforts to provide a stable, safe, and caring environment also were genuine and commendable, if not always successful," she wrote. "The state has managed to make them seem like monsters," Fornaci said of the mental patients. "What's made them difficult is that they don't belong in state psychiatric facilities." Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun *************************************** Challenge to Confinement by Md. Rejected Disabled Plaintiffs' Rights Not Violated, Judge Rules in Seven-Year-Old Case By Susan Levine Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 28, 2001 Seven years after a dozen developmentally delayed men and women claimed in a lawsuit that Maryland was unnecessarily confining them in state mental hospitals, a federal judge ruled yesterday that institutional care did not violate their constitutional rights or the Americans With Disabilities Act. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake said that neither the Constitution nor the sweeping ADA required the state to treat such individuals in the community -- even when medical professionals considered that setting more appropriate. Her opinion, 84 pages of review and reasoning, reflected the many questions posed by the class action. "It is unfortunate that decision-makers on both sides were not able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution of this case years ago," she wrote in a note at the beginning. She said in conclusion: "The evidence spread before the court reflected contrasting perspectives on a very difficult set of circumstances. The plaintiffs' pain and frustration was genuine and understandable; the defendants' efforts to provide a stable, safe, and caring environment also were genuine and commendable, if not always successful. "In the end," she wrote, "the plaintiffs have not shown sufficient reason for the court to order the State of Maryland to do more." Maryland officials had maintained that they had met their legal obligations by providing care in the state psychiatric hospitals while simultaneously expanding community-based treatment for these and other groups of disabled residents. They also contended that accommodating the plaintiffs more speedily would force a "fundamental alteration" in their program that would be unmanageably expensive. Blake agreed, judging that the state's progress was legally acceptable, given available resources. "It is a complete victory for the state," said Maureen Dove, chief of litigation in the attorney general's office. The 12 named plaintiffs included nine people with brain injuries and three with developmental problems unrelated to mental retardation. They represented a small class of about five dozen people in the state institutions. Often, they were individuals with aggressiveness, confusion, memory loss and difficult behaviors. The judge weighed their due process rights on the basis of the food, shelter, medical care and safety they were provided. She found none of that lacking constitutionally. Phil Fornaci, executive director of the Maryland Disability Law Center, could not hide his distress last night over the case's outcome. He said the judge had misread a fundamental aspect of the Supreme Court's 1999 Olmstead ruling, a landmark determination that the ADA prohibits the needless segregation of individuals with mental disabilities. "At a more human level, for our folks and plaintiffs to have waited this long for a decision and then have their hopes stolen from them is very disappointing," he said. The class action was filed in 1994 by the Maryland Disability Law Center. Testimony proceeded on a stop-start schedule for four years, with closing arguments also delayed. Since 1999, the case now styled Williams et al v. Wasserman had been in limbo awaiting the judge's ruling -- making it one of the longest-running cases on the federal docket in Baltimore. © 2001 The Washington Post Company