Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this
Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as
precedent or cited before any court except for
the purpose of establishing the defense of res
judicata, collateral estoppel, or the law of the
case.
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE:
DARREN BEDWELL ANNA OBERGFELL
Marion County Public Defender Wishard Health Services
FILED
Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis, Indiana
Oct 01 2012, 9:12 am
IN THE CLERK
of the supreme court,
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA court of appeals and
tax court
IN THE MATTER OF THE CIVIL )
COMMITMENT OF: F.L., )
)
Appellant-Respondent, )
)
vs. ) No. 49A02-1202-MH-130
)
WISHARD HEALTH SERVICES, MIDTOWN )
COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER, )
)
Appellee-Petitioner. )
APPEAL FROM THE MARION SUPERIOR COURT
The Honorable Gerald S. Zore, Judge
Cause No. 49D08-0411-MH-1286
October 1, 2012
MEMORANDUM DECISION - NOT FOR PUBLICATION
BARTEAU, Senior Judge
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
F.L. appeals an order of civil commitment requiring him to receive outpatient
treatment from Wishard Health Services, Midtown Community Mental Health Center
(“Wishard”). We affirm.
ISSUE
F.L. raises one issue, which we restate as: whether the trial court’s order is
supported by sufficient evidence.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
F.L. has been diagnosed with chronic schizoaffective disorder and alcohol
dependence. He lives in subsidized housing and receives disability payments. For the
past three years, F.L. has been the subject of an ongoing order of civil commitment,
pursuant to which he has received outpatient psychiatric services from Dr. Thota Rao, a
Wishard employee. F.L. rejects his psychiatric diagnoses, telling Rao that “nothing is
wrong with him” and that he has the “right to drink alcohol.” Tr. p. 13. F.L. frequently
refuses to take his prescribed medications, and Rao characterizes him as having “no
insight into his illness.” Id. at 12.
On December 7, 2011, F.L., by counsel, filed a request for a hearing on his
ongoing civil commitment. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing, during which Rao
requested an extension of F.L.’s civil commitment, asserting that F.L. needed ongoing
outpatient psychiatric services. He proposed to give F.L. a different drug for his
schizoaffective disorder and a new medication to address F.L.’s alcohol dependency.
The trial court issued an order determining that F.L.: (1) is mentally ill; (2) is a danger to
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others and is gravely disabled; and (3) is in need of continued outpatient care from
Wishard. The trial court ordered Wishard to file a report on January 24, 2013. This
appeal followed.
DISCUSSION AND DECISION
In civil commitment proceedings, a petitioner must prove by clear and convincing
evidence that the individual is mentally ill and either dangerous or gravely disabled, and
that commitment of that individual is appropriate. Ind. Code § 12-26-2-5(e) (2007).
When reviewing an order of involuntary civil commitment, we look only to the evidence
and reasonable inferences therefrom most favorable to the trial court’s judgment. In re
Involuntary Commitment of A.M., 959 N.E.2d 832, 834-35 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011). We may
not reweigh the evidence or judge the credibility of witnesses. Id. at 835.
Here, F.L. does not dispute for purposes of this appeal that he is mentally ill.
Instead, he challenges the trial court’s determinations that he is gravely disabled and
dangerous to others. The term “gravely disabled” is defined by statute as follows:
“Gravely disabled,” for purposes of IC 12-26, means a condition in which
an individual, as a result of mental illness, is in danger of coming to harm
because the individual:
(1) is unable to provide for that individual’s food, clothing, shelter,
or other essential human needs; or
(2) has a substantial impairment or an obvious deterioration of that
individual’s judgment, reasoning, or behavior that results in the
individual’s inability to function independently.
Ind. Code § 12-7-2-96 (1992).
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In this case, as noted above, F.L. rejects his diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder
and alcohol dependency, and he has little insight into his mental illness. Rao noted that
F.L. was “not taking care of himself” in the year prior to the hearing in this case. Tr. p.
14. F.L. drank alcohol almost every day and did not take his medication. Furthermore,
F.L. wore the same clothes repeatedly and frequently did not take showers. With respect
to meals, F.L. had no food in the apartment, and F.L. told Rao he occasionally swapped
alcohol for canned tuna. F.L. was admitted to Wishard Hospital for malnutrition during
the year prior to the hearing.
As for overall physical health, on several occasions F.L. refused to go to the
hospital when his liver enzymes were elevated, indicating his health was at risk. Even
more disturbing, on January 15, 2012, Rao and several medical students visited F.L. and
noted that he had an infection on his arm. The infected area was red and leaking fluid,
and dead skin was scattered on the floor. Nevertheless, F.L. refused to go to the hospital.
The next day, Wishard staff convinced him to go see a nurse practitioner, and the nurse
stated that she had never seen such a serious infection before.
Rao also noted that F.L.’s mental condition had been “deteriorating.” Id. at 21.
During the January 15, 2012 apartment visit, when Rao suggested taking F.L. to the
hospital to treat the infection, F.L. became agitated and got “up [in Rao’s] face.” Id. at 8.
Rao became scared at that point. Rao also noted that F.L. has become more agitated and
paranoid due to his failure to take medication. The police were called to F.L.’s apartment
several times in 2011.
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Thus, F.L. is unable to adequately feed himself or to address his serious medical
conditions when he does not take his medication. He also has difficulty interacting with
others and behaves in an agitated manner that has resulted in intervention by law
enforcement. This evidence amply demonstrates that F.L. has a substantial impairment
or an obvious deterioration of his judgment, reasoning, and behavior that has resulted in
an inability to function independently. See A.M., 959 N.E.2d at 836 (determining that the
evidence supported the trial court’s determination of grave disability where the patient
denied any mental illness and refused to take her medications, and as a result engaged in
agitated and aggressive behavior); In re Commitment of A.W.D., 861 N.E.2d 1260, 1265
(Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (affirming a determination of grave disability where the person’s
mental illness rendered him incapable of addressing his other medical conditions), trans.
denied. This evidence is sufficient to establish that F.L. meets the definition of being
gravely disabled. See Ind. Code § 12-7-2-96.
F.L. points to evidence that he lives in his own apartment and can pay his bills as
proof that he is not gravely disabled. This is a request to reweigh the evidence, which we
cannot do. F.L. also cites to In re Commitment of Steinberg, 821 N.E.2d 385 (Ind. Ct.
App. 2004), but that case is distinguishable. In Steinberg, a panel of this Court reversed
the trial court’s determination that Steinberg was gravely disabled, noting that no
evidence was presented at the hearing to prove that he “was unable to provide for his
essential human needs or that he was unable to function independently.” Id. at 389. By
contrast, in the current case Wishard presented extensive evidence that F.L.’s untreated
mental illness renders him unable to function independently.
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Finally, Indiana Code section 12-26-2-5(e) provides that a petitioner must prove
that an individual is dangerous or gravely disabled. Because the statute is written in the
disjunctive, and there is sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s finding of grave
disability, we do not need to address whether F.L. is dangerous to others. There is thus
sufficient evidence to sustain the trial court’s judgment.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Affirmed.
FRIEDLANDER, J., and VAIDIK, J., concur.
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