Improper Commitment

An important category of cases of alleged psychiatric malicious practice involves actions for false and improper commitment of a person to a mental institution, an action sometimes based upon statute but more often arrived at by a common law false imprisonment or malicious prosecution action. This consideration poses an interesting concrete question: If a psychiatrist conspires with a patient's relative to commit the patient to an institution because of alleged insanity, and writes to a court requesting confinement of the patient, is the psychiatrist liable for damages where the court later finds the patient was not insane and orders him released ?

Malicious Prosecution
The answer to this intriguing query is to be found in Loweii vs Hilton (351 P 2d 881), decided by the Supreme Court of Colorado in I960. In that case the plaintiff brought a suit for malicious prosecution against his brother and a psychiatrist. He charged that they had conspired to institute lunacy proceedings against him. The plaintiff's brother had signed...