The Massachusetts Appeals Court issued its ruling June 11 in favor of the Children’s Hospital Corporation, which treated a 14-year-old girl who ingested aspirin and pills prescribed to her mother in 2012.
The ruling makes it a clean sweep for Boston Children’s Hospital, as it won some claims on summary judgment and others during a trial.
“We conclude that while the hospital and the defendant medical providers do have certain obligations to the parent of a minor child in their care – in particular, the obligation to confer regarding treatment and to obtain informed consent – they do not owe the duties asserted by (plaintiff Claudia Felder),” Justice John Englander wrote.
Defendants faced claims of medical malpractice and intentional infliction of emotional distress, while Felder alleged intentional interference with custodial relations, among other things.
Felder argued the medical providers owed duties to provide “family-driven” treatment to her and her daughter, while also claiming they should have instigated contact between them.
Felder had notified the center that she could no longer pay for treatment and that she intended to take her daughter back to Switzerland rather than have her transferred to a step-down program. BCH’s treatment team decided not to discharge the daughter to Ponder, out of concern for her safety.
Ultimately, the daughter, who told doctors during treatment that she did not wish to speak to her mother, was discharged into her father’s care. Felder’s lawsuit said the treatment center should have supported the mother-daughter relationship.
“A psychiatrist treating a minor child does not have an obligation also to treat the child’s parents, or other family,” Englander wrote.
“Nor does a psychiatrist owe a general duty to the parents to ‘facilitate’ the child’s relationship with them, or to provide the parents ‘reasonable aftercare.’”