Administration of psychotropic medication; due process

Johnson v. Tinwalla, 855 F.3d 747 (7th Cir. 2017)

Seventh Circuit reverses summary judgment awarded by the district court to facility physician who prescribed and arranged for dispensing of psychotropic medication over an inmate’s objection, finding that an inmate can pursue claims that his resulting unknowing taking of the medication violated his constitutional due process rights and constituted common law medical battery.

Found in DMHL Volume 36, Issue 2

Judge Cannot Compel Medical Exam and Evaluation of Depressed Woman When She Is Capable of Exercising Informed Consent

Cavuoto v. Buchanan County Dep't Soc. Servs., 605 S.E.2d 287 (Va. Ct. App. 2004)

A Virginia law authorizes judicial orders compelling individuals to submit to a medical examination and evaluation (VA. CODE § 37.1- 134.21). A circuit court judge issued such an order for a fifty-one-year-old woman who was suffering from morbid obesity and depression and who had been bedridden for more than two years, following a fire in the house in which she and her husband resided...

Found in DMHL Volume 24 Issue 2