Congratulations to Attorneys Tony Abeln, Rachel Forbes and Brea Adams, who secured a Summary Judgment victory for our clients, a Boston teaching Hospital and three security officers in case arising from a police officer-involved shooting and death. Plaintiff’s estate alleged that Defendants’ initial interaction with the decedent, a mentally ill individual who was present on the hospital campus, set off a chain of events culminating in his death by police following a confrontation and vehicle pursuit spanning multiple towns in the greater Boston area. The HMDR&S team successfully argued to the Court that the independent decisions of law enforcement officers to use deadly force at a separate scene constituted a superseding intervening cause that severed any causal connection to any conduct by the Defendants. The Court agreed that unarmed hospital security personnel could not be held liable for the unforeseeable, independent judgment of police officers to deploy lethal force, resulting in dismissal of all claims against our clients.
