Norfolk Superior Court Judge Michael Doolin heard roughly 45 minutes of argument on October 28, 2026, and ended the afternoon without ruling. At issue was whether Patrick Clancy’s wrongful death lawsuit against two of his former wife’s mental health providers can proceed to discovery, or whether a Massachusetts immunity statute bars it entirely.
The hearing turned on a single question of statutory interpretation, not on whether the providers were negligent. Lawyers for psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Tufts and psychiatric nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta argued that Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 123, Section 36B is the only route to recovery against a mental health professional when a patient harms someone else — and that Clancy’s complaint does not satisfy it. Clancy’s attorney countered that the case is an ordinary medical malpractice action the statute never touched.
Judge Doolin took the motion under advisement. No ruling has issued.
Key Takeaways
- Judge Michael Doolin heard arguments October 28, 2026, in Norfolk Superior Court and took the defendants’ motion to dismiss under advisement without ruling.
- The dispute is whether § 36B, which limits a mental health professional’s duty to warn or protect third parties, also bars ordinary malpractice claims about the treatment of the patient.
- Both sides agreed that one of the statute’s two exceptions — a known history of physical violence — does not apply, narrowing the case to the “explicit threat” exception.
- Defense counsel argued the critical allegation appeared only after a motion to dismiss was served, and that it rests on “information and belief” with no supporting affidavit.
- Plaintiff’s counsel told the court that Lindsay Clancy will testify she disclosed homicidal ideation to her providers, but qualified that this depends on her Fifth Amendment issues being resolved.
- This civil case is separate from the criminal case, in which Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial ended in a mistrial in September 2026.
What Happened at the October 28 Hearing
The clerk called the case at roughly the ten-minute mark of the recording. Three attorneys argued: Tim Sweetland for Jollotta and South Shore Health System, Mary Azzarito for Dr. Tufts and Aster Mental Health, and Howard Cooper for Patrick Clancy.
Sweetland went first and argued that § 36B provides immunity and supplies the exclusive mechanism for recovery. Azzarito followed with a pleading-standard argument and a foreseeability argument. Cooper then spent nearly 25 minutes arguing that the defense had attacked a claim he never brought.
Judge Doolin interrupted twice during the defense presentation, both times pressing on whether the complaint actually contained the allegations the defense said were missing. He asked one substantive question at the end, directed at Sweetland, about how the defense reading of a 2011 Appeals Court decision survives a later Supreme Judicial Court ruling.
He then closed argument, complimented all three attorneys, and said he would take the matter under advisement.
Background: How the Case Reached This Point
Lindsay Clancy has not denied strangling the couple’s three children — Cora, five; Dawson, three; and Callan, eight months — at their Duxbury home on January 24, 2023. Her criminal defense was that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and lacked criminal responsibility.
Her first-degree murder trial in Plymouth Superior Court ended in a mistrial on September 4, 2026, after jurors deliberated roughly seven days and reported they could not reach a unanimous verdict. Prosecutors have since filed to retry her; the defense has argued that double jeopardy should bar a second trial.
Separately, in January 2026, Patrick and Lindsay Clancy each filed civil suits in Norfolk Superior Court against mental health providers. Patrick’s wrongful death and medical malpractice complaint names Dr. Tufts, Jollotta, and their practices, Aster Mental Health and South Shore Health. It alleges the providers overprescribed and failed to coordinate medications and failed to respond to a deteriorating psychiatric picture in the months before the children’s deaths.
All four defendants moved jointly to dismiss, arguing in part that they owed the Clancy children no duty of care and that § 36B shields them. That motion was the subject of the October 28 hearing.
These remain allegations. No court has found that any provider breached a standard of care or caused the children’s deaths.
Detailed Breakdown of the Arguments
Sweetland: the statute is the only door, and it is closed
Sweetland’s position was that § 36B applies, that it is the exclusive means of recovery, and that neither of its exceptions is met.
He read the operative language to the court. The statute says there is no duty and no cause of action against a licensed mental health professional for failure to “warn or in any other way protect” a potential victim of that professional’s patient, unless one of two conditions is satisfied. Sweetland stressed the phrase “or in any other way protect,” arguing it reaches well beyond a narrow failure-to-warn claim.
He relied on Shea v. Caritas Carney Hospital, a 2011 Massachusetts Appeals Court decision. In Shea, the court held that § 36B abrogated the common-law duty a mental health professional would otherwise owe, reasoning that a statute is not read to change the common law unless that intent is clearly expressed. Sweetland’s point was that Shea involved more than a warning claim — it also involved an alleged failure to hospitalize, which is straightforward medical negligence — and that the Shea court dismissed both.
He distinguished the plaintiff’s authorities, including Coombes v. Florio, where an ordinary physician was held potentially liable to a third party injured by a patient driving under the influence of a prescribed sedating medication. The legislature, he argued, set a different rule for mental health professionals.
The judge presses on the pleadings
Sweetland then turned to the amended complaint, acknowledging the Rule 12(b)(6) standard but arguing that allegations which are speculative, conclusory, or lacking a good-faith factual basis do not get the benefit of being assumed true.
Judge Doolin interrupted: “But isn’t that alleged though?”
Sweetland said it was not, and that he would explain. Minutes later the judge pointed him to page 11 of the amended complaint, paragraph 53, which alleges Lindsay Clancy reported intrusive thoughts to Dr. Tufts about harming herself and her children.
These exchanges matter procedurally. On a motion to dismiss, the question is not whether an allegation is true but whether it appears in the pleading and is specific enough to count. The judge was checking the document rather than accepting counsel’s characterization of it.
Sweetland’s answer was that intrusive thoughts are not the same as an explicit threat to kill or inflict serious bodily injury. He also argued the plaintiff was asking the court to infer, from allegations that Lindsay told her husband and mother about such thoughts, that she must have told her clinicians too. That inference, he said, is speculation. He noted that the one specific exchange pleaded — at paragraph 57, in which Jollotta asked whether she had thoughts of harming the children — records a denial.
He asked for dismissal with prejudice, while acknowledging the gravity of the case.
Azzarito: plausibility and foreseeability
Azzarito argued the pleading standard associated with Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly requires a plausible right to relief, not merely facts consistent with one. She catalogued the paragraphs in which the critical allegations appear — 66, 67, 79, 83 and 101 — and argued that each rests on “information and belief” rather than specific fact.
On foreseeability, she drew the contrast with the prescribing cases: a patient sedated by medication who then drives presents a foreseeable risk in a way she said this outcome did not. “There’s no foreseeability,” she told the court, adding that the outcome shocked everyone and was undeniably tragic.
Cooper: this was never a duty-to-warn case
Cooper opened by telling Judge Doolin that what he had just heard was a closing argument, inappropriate at the dismissal stage. His argument had three parts.
First, the complaint pleads negligence, not failure to warn. He pointed the court to page 17, paragraph 82 and following, which he said sets out a long list of departures from the standard of care: failure to coordinate between providers, failure by Dr. Tufts to see the patient in person, medication prescribed without coordination, absence of blood plasma testing, and failure to respond to worsening symptoms. He described the providers as on notice that the situation was “a disaster waiting to happen.”
Second, he argued § 36B does not preempt tort law generally. On his reading, the statute addresses when a clinician must breach patient confidentiality to warn a target or contact police. He cited Riley v. Davison Construction for the proposition that a legislature intending to immunize a category of defendant must say so, and Polay v. McMahon for the proposition that allegations made on information and belief are taken as true at the pleading stage. He cited Schaer v. Brandeis University as the leading Massachusetts authority on conclusory allegations, arguing his complaint is the opposite of conclusory.
Third, he argued that even treating this as a § 36B case, the complaint pleads enough. He noted the providers asked about homicidal ideation at all — which he said indicates concern about risk — and argued the statute does not require a threat specifying date, time, place and manner.
Cooper also made a point about the records themselves: Dr. Tufts testified at the criminal trial that Lindsay was a good reporter of her own symptoms, yet her own notes describe poor insight. Relying on a patient you consider to have poor insight to self-report homicidal ideation, he argued, is itself a problem.
He told the court he expects Lindsay Clancy to testify that she disclosed homicidal ideation to these defendants — once her Fifth Amendment issues are resolved. That qualifier is significant. With a retrial pending, her testimony is not presently available on any timetable the court controls.
The judge’s question, and the close
Judge Doolin’s one substantive question went to Sweetland: “Talk to me about Williams v. Stewart vis-a-vis your argument about Shea.”
Sweetland answered that Shea covered both the warning claim and a failure-to-hospitalize claim, and that the Appeals Court dismissed both. The judge observed that the complaint “has a lot of theories.” Sweetland agreed, said the defendants would answer each of them if the case proceeded, and returned to his core point: the statute permits liability only through its two exceptions, and only the explicit-threat exception remains in play, because the parties agree there was no history of physical violence.
Judge Doolin closed: “I’ll take it under advisement.”
The Legal Question the Judge Must Resolve
The dispute is narrower than it first appears, and the statutory text is where it lives.
Section 36B says a licensed mental health professional owes no duty to “warn or in any other way protect a potential victim” of that professional’s patient. The phrase the defense leans on is “in any other way protect.” The phrase the plaintiff leans on is “potential victim.” Everything in the statute is oriented toward a third party. Nothing in it speaks to the standard of care a clinician owes the patient.
Subsection (2) reinforces that reading. It provides that when a professional takes reasonable precautions, the patient cannot sue over the resulting disclosure of confidential communications. That is a confidentiality shield, not a general malpractice immunity.
Verifying the case the judge asked about. The decision Cooper cited, and which the transcript renders as “Williams v. Stewart,” is Williams v. Steward Health Care System, LLC, 480 Mass. 286 (2018), an SJC opinion by Justice Gaziano. Its actual holding is more double-edged than either attorney’s framing suggested.
On one hand, Williams supports Cooper in part. The SJC held that § 36B does not address a hospital’s independent common-law duty to control a civilly committed patient in its custody, and that the legislative history does not suggest an intent to displace a duty owed by an institution. That is a real limit on the statute’s sweep.
On the other hand, Williams contains language that works against him here. The Court quoted Shea approvingly for the proposition that § 36B does not show an intention to permit additional common-law liability. It reasoned that the statutory rule would prevent imposing a duty to control on a mental health professional, and on a hospital through respondeat superior. And in a footnote, the Court observed that had claims been brought against the individual mental health professionals in that case, § 36B(1) immunity would have applied and those professionals almost certainly would have had individual immunity.
That footnote is the difficulty. The Williams carve-out ran to an institution’s custodial duty over a committed patient. Dr. Tufts and Jollotta are individual outpatient clinicians — the configuration the footnote addresses directly.
Williams also stated that for § 36B(1) to apply, a patient must make a specific threat about a specific person with apparent ability and intent to carry it out. Whether reported intrusive thoughts about harming one’s own children meet that description is precisely what Judge Doolin must decide.
What the Record Does and Does Not Establish
Established: The hearing occurred October 28, 2026. The motion was taken under advisement. No ruling issued. Both sides agree the history-of-violence exception does not apply. Paragraph 53 of the amended complaint alleges reported intrusive thoughts to Dr. Tufts. Paragraph 57 describes an exchange in which the answer was no.
Disputed: Whether Lindsay Clancy communicated anything to her providers amounting to an explicit threat. Whether the treatment records are complete. Whether the amended complaint’s “information and belief” allegations have an adequate factual basis. Whether § 36B reaches malpractice claims at all.
Not established by anything at this hearing: That any provider was negligent. That any alleged failure caused the children’s deaths. That Lindsay Clancy will in fact testify. The judge made no factual findings, and a motion to dismiss is not an occasion for them.
What Happens Next
Judge Doolin will issue a written decision on the motion. No deadline has been announced, and none is required.
Three outcomes are available. He may allow the motion and dismiss — with or without prejudice, though the defense asked for prejudice. He may deny it, sending the case into discovery, where depositions of the providers, Patrick Clancy and Paula Musgrove would follow. Or he may allow it in part, dismissing some theories while permitting others.
A separate thread matters here. Cooper’s representation about Lindsay Clancy’s testimony drew a public response from her criminal defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, who disputed that she has agreed to testify in the civil case and said Patrick Clancy’s counsel does not speak for her. Readers should treat both statements as the positions of opposing lawyers.
On the criminal side, prosecutors have moved to retry Lindsay Clancy, the defense has raised double jeopardy, and reporting indicates the parties were due back in Plymouth Superior Court in early November 2026. The two cases are formally separate, but the criminal timeline shapes when, or whether, Lindsay Clancy can testify in the civil case without Fifth Amendment problems.
Anyone tracking the case can confirm filings through the Norfolk Superior Court clerk; our legal resources guide explains how to locate a state docket and read what a judge actually decided.
Why This Hearing Matters
Most coverage of this case has focused on the criminal trial. This hearing is about something different and, for Massachusetts clinicians and patients, arguably broader: whether a statute written in 1989 to answer the Tarasoff duty-to-warn question also immunizes psychiatric providers from ordinary malpractice claims when a patient harms a third party.
If Judge Doolin adopts the defense reading, outpatient psychiatric providers in Massachusetts would be insulated from third-party claims arising from how they managed a patient’s medication and treatment, absent an explicit threat. If he adopts Cooper’s reading, § 36B stays confined to the warn-or-protect duty, and negligence claims proceed on their own terms.
It is a genuinely contested question, which is why the judge did not rule from the bench. Pretrial hearings like this one often decide more about a case’s future than the testimony that follows.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in the Patrick Clancy lawsuit on October 28, 2026?
Judge Michael Doolin heard argument on the defendants’ motion to dismiss in Norfolk Superior Court and took the motion under advisement without ruling.
Was the lawsuit dismissed?
No. Nothing was decided. A decision will come in a written ruling at a later date.
What law are the providers relying on?
M.G.L. c. 123, § 36B, which says a mental health professional has no duty to warn or otherwise protect a patient’s potential victim unless the patient made an explicit threat against an identified victim, or had a known history of physical violence creating a clear and present danger.
Did Lindsay Clancy testify at this hearing?
No. She was not a participant. Her attorney has publicly disputed the suggestion that she has agreed to testify in the civil case.
How does this relate to her criminal case?
They are separate proceedings in separate counties. Her murder trial ended in a mistrial in September 2026, and prosecutors have moved to retry her. A hung jury is not an acquittal, and it decides nothing in the civil case.
Where can I read the hearing record?
A full transcript of the hearing is published by Rev. It is machine-generated and misspells several names, including the case Williams v. Steward.
Current Status of the Case
As of October 30, 2026, the defendants’ motion to dismiss Patrick W. Clancy et al. v. Jennifer A. Tufts, M.D., et al. remains under advisement before Judge Michael Doolin in Norfolk Superior Court. The case has not been dismissed, no discovery has begun, and no trial date exists. Lindsay Clancy’s criminal case remains open following the September mistrial, with the Commonwealth seeking a retrial and the defense contesting it. More of our courtroom reporting is collected here.