ST. LOUIS (Legal Newsline) – Government defendants can’t be sued over the suicide of a teenager at an alternative juvenile center in Missouri.
Plaintiff Jennifer Harmon’s son hanged himself at the Bruce Normile Juvenile Justice Center, which became part of the state’s Second Judicial Circuit Court in 2009. Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in May on behalf of the Second Judicial Circuit and its employees.
Judge Sarah Pitlyk, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, granted that motion on March 31.
“Plaintiff has not alleged both the existence and breach of any statue, ordinance, regulation or department-mandated rule imposing a duty upon any of the government defendants to perform a discrete act, which is a prerequisite for stating a claim that is not barred by Missouri’s official immunity doctrine,” the decision says.
Harmon sued 16 defendants over the death of her son, identified in court papers as N.J. He was struggling with suicidal thoughts in early 2018 and stayed at the St. Anthony’s Medical Center psychiatric unit before being admitted to the Normile Center.
The lawsuit says that N.J. indicated to multiple individuals that he wanted to hang himself and that the center did not offer him the proper psychological services, attention and treatment that someone in his state of mental distress needed.
The Normile Center staff is accused of failing to notice the boy's preparation for suicide, including days of refusing medication and not allowing staff into his room. The staff allegedly failed to enter the teen's room and check on him every 15 minutes as was protocol.
He attempted suicide on April 11 with a white cloth belt, something that the suit says he should not have been permitted to have as someone with suicidal tendencies who verbally stated an intent to hang himself.
Pitlyk kept alive some claims Harmon made against Preferred Family Healthcare, which employed a social worker who met with N.J. in April 2018 and is alleged to not have informed the Normile Center about N.J.’s mental state.
Pitlyk said a reasonable jury could infer the suicide was a “probable consequence.”