Are ECT Malpractice Lawsuits Against Psychiatrists Rare?

Source: Slawson 1991, “Psychiatric Malpractice and ECT: A Review of 1,700 Claims”; legal-background reviewer: Mara Ellison; last verified: August 30, 2026. This article is an evidence review, not legal or medical advice.

As of August 30, 2026, the only systematic study identified in the available record found 22 ECT-related claims among 1,700 psychiatric malpractice claims reviewed from 1984 through 1990. Four complaints referenced side effects, complications, or the appropriateness of ECT, and the study reported below-average resolution costs. No later peer-reviewed or insurer study in the record supplies a comparable ECT-specific measurement.[1]

That is a share of a psychiatric claims sample—not a lawsuit rate among ECT patients, procedures, or psychiatrists. The available materials do not provide the number of ECT treatments performed, the number of patients exposed, or the number of psychiatrists practicing during the period. Any answer about how often claims occur must therefore carry both qualifications: the measured universe was psychiatric claims, and the measurement is roughly 35 years old.

What the 22-of-1,700 finding actually measures

Slawson’s review is the load-bearing evidence because it examines a defined claims pool rather than collecting dramatic examples from individual lawsuits. Of the 1,700 psychiatric malpractice claims reviewed, 22 involved ECT. Four complaints specifically referred to side effects, complications, or whether ECT was appropriate.[1]

The arithmetic is approximately 1.3% of the psychiatric claims in that review. It does not establish that 1.3% of ECT patients sued, that 1.3% of treatments generated a claim, or that 1.3% of psychiatrists faced an ECT action. The denominator contains claims, not people or procedures.

The abstract also reports that ECT claims had below-average resolution costs and characterizes ECT malpractice claims as infrequent.[1] It does not provide a dollar amount in the available material. “Below average” cannot be converted into a typical settlement value, verdict exposure, or present-day defense-cost estimate.

There is a further limit that matters to anyone using the study for litigation planning: the full text is not available in the packet. The source of the claims pool, the dispositions, and any breakdown by legal theory cannot be independently checked here. The abstract supports a narrow historical baseline. It does not reveal how many claims reached trial, how many were dismissed or settled, what consent practices were alleged, or which injuries drove resolution.

The historical baseline does not establish a 2026 rate

The period reviewed ended in 1990, and the study was published in 1991. Nothing in the supplied record updates its denominator for changes in ECT practice, consent documentation, treatment volume, patient selection, insurer reporting, or litigation behavior. The correct current statement is consequently an absence statement: no post-1991 peer-reviewed or insurer study in this record quantifies ECT-specific malpractice claim frequency.

That gap cuts both ways. It prevents a current litigation wave from being demonstrated, but it also prevents the old low-frequency finding from being treated as a verified 2026 risk level. A historical claims sample can answer what appeared in that sample. It cannot silently become surveillance of present-day ECT practice.

Why recent lawsuit figures do not update the count

An August 2026 advocacy article reports several recent or historical matters, including Salters v. Palmetto Health Alliance in South Carolina, identified there as case 03CP4004797, with a verdict reportedly exceeding $600,000. It also reports a Sacramento County settlement before a trial scheduled for May 11, 2026, and refers to a 2023 Florida case. The article does not supply primary court orders for those matters in the available packet.[2]

Those mentions should be labeled reported-only. The Sacramento matter is not validated here against the county or court record; the Florida matter lacks identifying information such as parties, court, docket, citation, and outcome. The absence of records in this packet does not prove that the records do not exist. It does mean that these references cannot be added to a verified incidence count.

The same caution applies to the article’s statement, attributed to the law firm Wisner Baum, that there have been “dozens of lawsuits.” Without a defined time period, jurisdictional scope, case list, and primary-record verification, the phrase is an assertion about a claimed body of litigation—not a reproducible rate against psychiatrists.

There is also a category problem. The advocacy article emphasizes failure-to-warn litigation directed at device manufacturers, including MECTA Spectrum and Somatics Thymatron.[2] That is materially different from counting malpractice claims against treating psychiatrists. A manufacturer case may concern product warnings, while a claim against a psychiatrist may concern selection, administration, monitoring, documentation, or informed consent. Treating both as one ECT-malpractice universe would obscure who was sued and what conduct was alleged.

Consent theories are not an ECT claim count

A general legal discussion can distinguish battery, informed consent, and negligence: the theories may turn on authorization, disclosure of material information, or the standard of professional care.[3] But the cited discussion supplies no ECT-specific decision, holding, element-by-element analysis, or application of a state consent statute. The available record therefore cannot support a statement that a particular ECT consent theory has prevailed, or that one theory dominates these claims.

This matters because concerns about memory effects, complications, and the quality of pre-treatment information may be clinically or legally significant without becoming incidence evidence. A recipient-information survey involving 738 ECT recipients and 217 family members or friends addresses recalled information before treatment, not whether a claim was filed, defended, settled, or tried.[4] A retrospective clinical cohort of 2,935 patients reports clinical events, including prolonged seizures, but contains no litigation variables.[5]

Those studies can inform questions about disclosure and adverse events. They cannot serve as proxies for the frequency of malpractice claims. Patients may experience an adverse event without alleging malpractice; a claim may be filed without a compensable injury; and neither circumstance can be inferred from a clinical survey or cohort alone.

The defensible answer

ECT malpractice claims against psychiatrists were rare in the only systematic historical claims sample identified here: 22 of 1,700 psychiatric claims reviewed from 1984 through 1990, with four complaints referencing side effects, complications, or appropriateness and with resolution costs reported as below the psychiatric average.[1] That is the strongest supported incidence statement.

It is not a verified statement about current ECT practice. No contemporary rate is established in the materials, and reported case mentions—including the alleged recent “wave”—remain leads for docket and claims-record checking rather than proof of frequency. Until a later systematic study or verifiable primary-record dataset supplies a defined denominator, the evidence supports an old, limited baseline and no reliable 2026 incidence figure.

References

1. Psychiatric Malpractice and ECT: A Review of 1,700 Claims — Convulsive Therapy, December 1991
2. The Parameters of Informed Consent — PubMed Central
3. To the Few Psychiatrists Who Still Believe in ECT: See You in Court — Mad in America, August 2026
4. ECT recipients’ and family members’ recollection of pre-ECT information — Journal of Medical Ethics
5. Retrospective clinical cohort of 2,935 ECT patients — PubMed Central