One of the more confounding issues we face as a society involves hospitalization of mentally ill persons against their will. Hospitalization may be necessary to prevent persons from causing injury to themselves or others. However, unwarranted, improper or unchecked involuntary commitments can cause severe psychological, personal and professional damage to the person forcibly hospitalized. Accordingly, the Legislature, in Article 9 of the Mental Hygiene Law, has adopted specific procedural and substantive requirements applicable to the various circumstances under which a person may be involuntarily committed. An involuntary commitment that fails to comply with those requirements may give rise to the right to recover damages for the forced hospitalization under various potential causes of action. This column examines the circumstances in which claims of this nature may be brought.

Early Cases

Before turning to the modern statutory and decisional authority, some historical perspective is warranted. There was a time when it was all too easy for individuals to be picked up off the streets or taken from their homes and involuntarily confined to psychiatric wards for indeterminate periods. Some of the older cases addressing actions seeking to recover for wrongful commitments are illustrative of the types of abuses that occurred.

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