Fee v. Ellison

By Judge Jerrauld C. Jones

This matter comes before the Court on Defendants’ Motion for a Separate Evidentiaiy Hearing upon Defendants’ Special Plea of Illegality.

The essential question that the Court must answer is whether the determination of the illegality of the decedent’s suicide, which, if proven, would bar this action, should be determined at a pretrial evidentiary hearing or at the trial on the merits of the case.

Defendants Waldo Ellison, M.D., and Dominion Psychiatric Associates, P.L.C., argue that this issue is best addressed in a separate, pretrial evidentiary hearing. Defendants…