SOUTH BRUNSWICK: Janicki family wins case against hospital

By Davy James, Staff Writer
   The family of a South Brunswick man who committed suicide after walking away from Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in 2005 was awarded $600,000 Tuesday in Mercer County.
   Judge F. Patrick McManimon handed down the verdict in favor of the family of Michael Janicki after a two-day hearing at Superior Court in Trenton.
   ”The error is that they put Michael on suicide watch but failed to supervise him properly,” said attorney Paul Daly, who represented the Janicki family. “They let him out of the building mistakenly, and he committed suicide.”
   Mr. Janicki was sentenced to indefinite hospital confinement in 2003 after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the stabbing death of his father, Ortwin Janicki, in July 2002. State Superior Court Judge Frederick De Vesa, sitting in New Brunswick, found the younger Mr. Janicki, then 19, was too schizophrenic to make ethical judgments when he stabbed his 55-year-old father to death with a 3-foot decorative sword in their Madison Place home. His father was asleep at the time.
   Mr. Janicki was held at the Anne Klein Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton from August 2002 until September 2004. He was moved to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in September 2004, which is less restrictive, after making progress in his treatment. However, right before his suicide Mr. Janicki told his therapist he was having suicidal thoughts, according to Mr. Daly.
   ”Michael reported to his therapist that he had seen some thumbtacks and thought about how he could hurt himself with them,” Mr. Daly said. “He wanted them to know that he was having these kinds of thoughts. His privileges were reduced, and he was put on watch.”
   Mr. Daly said the hospital failed to properly watch Mr. Janicki. From Aug. 26 through Aug. 30, 2005, there were no notes regarding observation or treatment regarding Mr. Janicki, according to Mr. Daly. Mr. Janicki was mistakenly given a pass to leave the facility when he disappeared Aug. 30, 2005. His body was found one week later by maintenance workers on the hospital grounds.
   Mr. Daly said that from 2004 to 2005, the hospital had 143 patients walk away from the facility. The past two years, the hospital had 31 patients walk away.
   ”They’ve gotten better, but the judge acknowledged they still have huge problems,” Mr. Daly said. “They were losing people with regularity at the time.”
   During the course of the litigation, the state tried to assert there were drugs in Mr. Janicki’s system at the time of his death, but failed to produce tissue samples, according to Mr. Daly.
   ”First, they wouldn’t produce the samples, and then they couldn’t find them,” Mr. Daly said. “The state refused to participate in the process. I don’t believe they have the basis for an appeal.”
   Multiple phone calls to the Office of the Attorney General weren’t returned.
   Mr. Daly said the family was awarded the money on the basis of pain and suffering and for wrongful death. He said the family is justified by what they lost when Mr. Janicki was allowed to exit the facility leading to his death.
   ”Michael was making progress in his treatment, and he was close to being discharged,” Mr. Daly said. “But they just let him slip through their fingers.”