Anonymous v. Superintendent of Hospital

The subject of this petition is a fourteen-year-old deaf-mute who is a patient at a state mental hospital. He was placed there as a “voluntary” patient, under the provisions of General Statutes § 17-206a (d), by the commissioner of welfare. He had been committed to the commissioner’s custody by the Juvenile Court as an uncared-for child.

Two legal actions were brought in the plaintiff’s behalf and were consolidated for purposes of trial because of the similarity of the issues involved in each case. The first is a habeas corpus proceeding which seeks the plaintiff’s release from the hospital…