## Facts

- Mikael Loyd was taken into emergency protective custody and admitted to a psychiatric facility, Lasting Hope Recovery Center, from August 8 to August 14, 2013.
- Police sought emergency custody after Loyd reported paranoid and homicidal ideas, including a desire to have his mother killed; police warned the mother.
- Loyd had an outstanding warrant related to an earlier alleged misdemeanor assault and battery of his girlfriend, Melissa Rodriguez.
- Psychiatrist Jeana Benton, employed by UNMC Physicians, treated Loyd at Lasting Hope and initially assessed him as paranoid, homicidal, delusional, and a risk of harm to others outside the hospital.
- During hospitalization, staff warned Loyd’s mother about threats against her; Melissa visited Loyd twice and ended their relationship during the second visit.
- The record did not show that Loyd actually communicated to Benton or facility staff a serious threat to harm Melissa.
- Benton ordered Loyd discharged on August 14, 2013; hours later, Loyd strangled Melissa to death.
- Melissa’s parents, as special administrators of her estate, sued Lasting Hope and UNMC Physicians for wrongful death, alleging negligence and failure to warn or protect Melissa.
- The district court granted summary judgment for defendants on the ground that they owed no duty to Melissa; the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether Nebraska’s duty-to-warn statute imposes a duty to warn or protect a reasonably identifiable victim when the patient did not actually communicate to the psychiatrist a serious threat to harm that victim.
2. Whether, independent of the statute, defendants owed a common-law duty (including a custodial-duty theory) to protect third parties from harm by a psychiatric patient.
3. Whether any asserted evidentiary or procedural errors on summary judgment warranted reversal despite the duty determination.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Lasting Hope and UNMC Physicians.
- The court held no statutory duty to warn or protect Melissa arose because Loyd did not actually communicate to the psychiatrist a serious threat to harm Melissa.
- The court declined to recognize a broader common-law duty that would require warning or protecting Melissa based on foreseeability or custodial control in a manner that would bypass the statute’s limits.
- Any alleged evidentiary or procedural errors did not alter the dispositive conclusion that defendants owed no duty to Melissa.

## Legal Principles

- Duty is a threshold element of negligence and is a question of law; without duty, there can be no negligence.
- Under Nebraska law governing psychiatrist duties to third parties, a duty to warn or protect arises only when the patient actually communicates to the psychiatrist a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim or victims.
- Information suggesting dangerousness that comes from third-party sources (e.g., police reports, warrants, family statements) does not satisfy the statutory “actual communication” requirement.
- Courts may limit or deny common-law duties where a countervailing legislative policy defines and restricts liability within a specific context; common-law theories cannot be used to circumvent statutory limits.
- Respondeat superior does not create liability absent underlying actionable negligence by an employee.

## Conclusion

The court held that, because the patient did not actually communicate a serious threat to harm Melissa to the treating psychiatrist, defendants owed Melissa no statutory or common-law duty to warn or protect her, and summary judgment for the psychiatric facility and physician employer was properly affirmed.


Rodriguez v. Lasting Hope Recovery Ctr. of Cath. Health Initiatives, 308 Neb. 538, 955 N.W.2d 707 (Neb. 2021)