Facts

Plaintiff Roman Arustamyan was a retired neurosurgeon from Armenia who became mentally disabled in 1995 when he became bipolar and manic rendering him incompetent to practice medicine. He took medications to stabilize these conditions for over 15 years, and he was relatively fine. Sometime in 2012, he stopped taking his medication and again became symptomatic from mental illness. He became delusional and very aggressive at home so his family took him to UCLA where he was placed on a 5150 hold, and transferred to Behavioral Health Care Alhambra Hospital. While there, he refused to take the medications his attending psychiatrist had ordered to stabilize his condition. He had to be put in 4-point restraints on one occasion and sedated on a couple others. His psychiatrist then filed a petition called a Riese Petition, seeking a court order allowing him to administer IV medication to the patient against his will on the basis that he lacked the capacity to give informed consent. This petition was granted about four days into plaintiff's hospital stay. About three days after that, the plaintiff was diagnosed with conjunctivitis and was put in an isolation room by himself at around 11 p.m., as they believed he was contagious.

At approximately 1:30 a.m., plaintiff went into the bathroom, where he was permitted by the staff to stay in there until 7 a.m. At 7:10 a.m., during a shift change, the plaintiff was found holding his left eyeball in his hand.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: Plaintiff contended that over the course of several hours, he had managed to remove his own eye with his fingers. Plaintiff's psychiatrist had ordered the technicians to perform Q15 checks, which means that the nursing staff and/or the technicians were supposed to do visual checks on him every 15 minutes for his health and safety. At around 5:30 a.m., plaintiff closed the door to the bathroom and turned the lights off. The technicians responsible for doing the Q15 checks would then only do a verbal check through the closed door and charted that they would ask the patient how he was doing and he would respond that he was fine and for the technicians to go away.

Plaintiff claimed the hospital staff was negligent in their care giving. Plaintiff claimed that had the staff done as the psychiatrist had ordered, which was a visual check of the patient, plaintiff would not have been able to remove his eye. Plaintiff also asserted causes of action for elder abuse.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: Defendants contended that plaintiff removed the eye within minutes (less than 15 minutes).

Specials in Evidence

Meds: $22416

Damages

Plaintiff sought $750,000 in pain and suffering damages. The medical malpractice cause of action was dismissed prior to trial leaving only the dependent adult neglect cause of action. Prior to trial, the court granted plaintiff's motion that the remaining cause of action was not capped at $250,000 for non-economic damages by MICRA. The case proceeded to the jury with a single cause of action for dependent adult neglect.

Injuries

Autoenucleation

Result

Plaintiff's verdict in the amount of $772,416 against BHC Alhambra Hospital Inc.

Deliberation

two days

Length

five days