Parker v. County of Los Angeles

MOORE, P. J.

Plaintiff is a refined gentlewoman. Having been confined in the state hospital for the insane at Patton for seven weeks after a temporary detention in the Los Angeles County General Hospital, she deemed herself to have been aggrieved and brought this action against the county of her domicile and against the sovereign State of California. Inasmuch as she had no legal counsel to represent her or to steer her through the narrow straits of the law, we have sought to determine whether out of the wilderness of words and phrases there might have been combed such declarations as would create a justiciable issue. The general demurrers to her complaint were both sustained without leave to amend. Prom the two judgments of dismissal following such orders she brings this appeal.

The Fads Pleaded Are Not Sufficient

Omitting all of the confusion and extraneous matters of the pleading the only language remaining which might bear upon a cause of action for damages is as follows: that plaintiff was detained for a week in the psychopathic ward of the General Hospital; that she did not there receive proper consideration and was denied the privilege of a jury trial; that she was committed to the state hospital at Patton on May 15, 1936; that the hospital wrote to plaintiff’s husband that “plaintiff was suffering from dementia praecox” and to her attorney that she “had epileptic seizures and was unquestionably paranoid”; that she underwent extreme mental suffering because of the incompetency and dishonesty of the employees of both institutions; that her health was injured; that while there she worried about her two children who were harmed in health and in character, and who endured mental suffering to her damage in the sum of $100,000 for each child; that she demands a half million dollars for herself and the possession of all records, pictures and recordings, and if these are not forthcoming, she should recover another half million dollars; that she had been unable to file suit within three years because she had been suffering a malaise induced by confinement in the state-hospital and by her extreme worry and mental suffering.

Such allegations against the State or one of its sub

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divisions do not constitute a cause of action. There is no declaration that she was not insane either at the time of her detention at the General Hospital or while she was confined at Patton. It is not alleged that the proceeding was wrongful or that it was initiated or instigated by either of the defendants or by any of their agents or agencies. It follows that had there been no plea of the limitation of her action, and had it not been directed against the sovereignty, still she could not have recovered.