## Facts

- Emma D. Turner worked as a nurse on an inpatient psychiatric unit at Hubbard Hospital in Nashville.
- Tarry Williams, an inpatient on the unit, had a documented history of serious mental illness, prior commitments based on dangerousness, and prior violent conduct while hospitalized, including an attempted attack on his psychiatrist, Dr. Harold W. Jordan.
- Dr. Jordan, Williams’s attending psychiatrist, was aware of facts indicating Williams was aggressive and dangerous.
- Turner alleged Dr. Jordan failed to take protective clinical or custodial measures within his authority (including medication, restraint, or transfer) despite foreseeability of harm to staff working with Williams.
- On March 5, 1993, Williams assaulted Turner on the unit, causing severe injuries.
- Turner and her husband sued Dr. Jordan for medical negligence; Turner presented expert testimony that Dr. Jordan’s conduct fell below the applicable psychiatric standard of care.
- The jury awarded $1,186,000 and allocated 100% fault to Dr. Jordan and 0% to Williams after being instructed it could consider Williams’s intentional conduct in the comparative-fault analysis.
- Acting as thirteenth juror, the trial court approved the verdict except the fault allocation and ordered a new trial; the intermediate appellate court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a psychiatrist owes a duty to protect a foreseeable, readily identifiable third party (hospital staff) from violent acts of a hospitalized mentally ill patient when the psychiatrist knows or should know of the patient’s dangerousness.
2. Whether a jury may compare a nonparty patient’s intentional assault with the psychiatrist’s negligence under comparative fault when the intentional act is the foreseeable risk created by the alleged negligence.
3. Whether a trial court, after disapproving a jury’s allocation of comparative fault as against the weight of the evidence under the thirteenth-juror doctrine, may reallocate fault rather than order a new trial.

## Decision

- The court held Dr. Jordan owed a duty of care to Turner because the risk of harm from Williams was foreseeable and Turner was a readily identifiable potential victim in the patient-care setting.
- The court held it was error to instruct the jury to compare Williams’s intentional conduct with Dr. Jordan’s negligence where the intentional violence was the foreseeable risk created by the alleged negligence; the error was harmless because the jury assigned 0% fault to Williams and 100% to Dr. Jordan.
- The court announced that when a trial judge disapproves a comparative-fault allocation as thirteenth juror, the judge may not reallocate fault and must order a new trial (stated for future guidance).
- The court reversed in part and affirmed in part, and remanded for entry of judgment on the jury’s verdict, reinstating the $1,186,000 award with 100% fault assigned to Dr. Jordan.

## Legal Principles

- A psychiatrist owes a duty of care to a third party when the psychiatrist knows or reasonably should know a mentally ill patient poses an unreasonable risk of harm to a foreseeable, readily identifiable third party.
- In comparative-fault allocation, a negligent defendant’s fault should not be compared with another’s intentional conduct when that intentional conduct is the foreseeable risk the negligent defendant had a duty to guard against.
- Under the thirteenth-juror doctrine, if a trial court disapproves a jury’s comparative-fault allocation as against the weight of the evidence, the remedy is a new trial; the court may not judicially reassign fault percentages.

## Conclusion

The court recognized a psychiatrist’s duty to protect identifiable hospital staff from a known dangerous inpatient, barred comparing the patient’s intentional assault to the psychiatrist’s negligence when the assault was the foreseeable risk of that negligence (treating the instructional error as harmless here), and directed entry of judgment on the jury’s verdict assigning full fault to the psychiatrist.


Turner v. Jordan, 957 S.W.2d 815 (Tenn. 1997)