Miller v. West

Boetd, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In these three suits damages are sought from two physicians on the ground that certificates by them to insanity in the plaintiff were improperly and falsely made and caused him to be wrongfully confined. Demurrers were sustained to the declarations without leave to' amend, and the plaintiff has appealed in each case. Each of the two physicians is sued separately, on two counts; the first count alleging that the particular defendant certified by a written certificate to the Maryland Hospital for the Insane that the plaintiff was mentally deficient with psychosis and that he was otherwise mentally deficient, that ²⁴⁷ it was the duty of the defendant to make personal examina,tion of the plaintiff before making the certificate, that he did not do' so, and that as a result of the certificate so made out, and of another by the other defendant, the plaintiff was wrongfully imprisoned in the hospital, and there is an added allegation that the certificate given was false, illegal, and fraudulent, and was a contributing cause of wrongful imprisonment.

The second count is'in the same words, except that in the failure to make the personal examination the defendant is alleged to have been negligent and careless. The third suit is against both defendants together, and it is alleged in the declaration that they conspired, agreed, and combined to have, the defendant wrongfully imprisoned in the hospital, and that they certified by false and fraudulent certificates to the hospital that the plaintiff was deficient as already stated, and that following, and as a result of, the conspiracy of the defendants and issuance by them of the false, illegal, and fraudulent certificates, the plaintiff was imprisoned in the hospital. A general objection is made to the maintenance of any such action, without reference to the sufficiency of particular allegations, on the ground that it is novel, neither for false arrest, malicious prosecution, libel, nor negligence, but this objection overlooks the comprehensive nature of actions on the case. Such an action lies wherever an injury is caused by failure to perform a duty toward the injured person under the law.

See Chapman v. Pickersgill, 2 Wilson, 146 ; Ashby v. White, Ld. Raymond, 938, 1 Smith’s Leading Cases, 105; Pasley v. Freeman, 3 T. R. 63, 1 Smith’s Leading Cases, 130, note; Maenner v. Carroll, 46 Md. 193, 212 . “The categories of negligence,” said Lord Macmillan, in Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932], A. C. 562, 619, “are never closed”; and so it may be said of torts generally. The allegations of duty violated are brief and general. It is not explicitly alleged that the certificates were procured and given in compliance with the requirements of the statute, Code, art. 59, secs. 32 and 37.

Assuming that they were so given, the question that then arises, whether physi ²⁴⁸ dans certifying to the hospital as to the mental condition of the plaintiff would be under a legal duty to the plaintiff, is •one on which some doubt has been cast. Substantially the same preliminaries to confinement are required in many jurisdictions, the statutes in all having been apparently modeled on the early English statutes, and the weight of authority in those jurisdictions