Pennsylvania’s Mental Health Procedures Act (“MHPA”), 50 P.S. §§ 7101-7503, which was enacted in 1976, is a comprehensive and sweeping reformation of Pennsylvania’s laws governing the treatment of those afflicted by severe mental illness. The MHPA specifically distinguishes between voluntary inpatient treatment and involuntary inpatient treatment: voluntary inpatient treatment is addressed in Article II, §§ 201 to 207, and involuntary inpatient treatment in Article III, §§ 301 to 306.
Section 202
Section 202 of the MHPA states: “Application for voluntary examination and treatment shall be made to an approved facility or to the county administrator, Veterans Administration or other agency of the United States operating a facility for the care and treatment of mental illness. When application is made to the county administrator, he shall designate the approved facility for examination and for such treatment as may be appropriate.”
Section 302
Section 302 specifies that the involuntary commitment process may be initiated only through the filing of a certification by a physician; a warrant issued by the county administrator authorizing such examination; or an application by a physician or authorized person who has personally observed actions indicating a need for an emergency application – all three of these methods require the execution of written documents by a third person attesting to the need for involuntary treatment.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated in an April 25, 2025 Opinion: “Thus, in crafting Section 302, the legislature was clear that a person cannot be involuntarily committed unless one of these statutorily prescribed written requirements are met. These requirements are conspicuously absent from Section 202 … we deem the General Assembly’s omission of any written application requirement in Section 202 as a deliberate decision that the execution of a written application form by a person seeking voluntary inpatient treatment is not necessary.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in its April 25, 2025 Opinion: “our Court is asked to decide whether our decision in Leight v. UPMC, 243 A.3d 126 (Pa. 2020) (“Leight II”), bars a suit by a third party under Pennsylvania’s Mental Health Procedures Act (“MHPA”) for alleged willful misconduct or gross negligence by treatment facilities and their medical staff in failing to admit an individual who presented himself and verbally requested voluntary inpatient treatment for a serious mental health crisis he was experiencing. After careful review, we conclude that Leight II does not bar such a suit, and that the MHPA does not require a person seeking voluntary inpatient treatment to make a written request for such treatment in order to trigger a duty on the part of treatment facilities to engage in the evaluation and treatment processes mandated by the MHPA. Consequently, we affirm the order of the Superior Court which reached the same conclusion … we hold that, under the MHPA, an individual’s act of presenting himself to an approved facility and orally requesting admission for voluntary inpatient treatment is sufficient to constitute an application for voluntary inpatient treatment for purposes of the MHPA, such that Section 114(a) imposes liability on health care providers for willful misconduct or gross negligence in denying such treatment.”
“The factual record in this matter, viewed in a light most favorable to Administrator, indicates that Wise requested voluntary inpatient treatment when he presented himself to the emergency room at Geisinger and requested admission to treat his intense mental distress, and Geisinger examined him to evaluate his request. Further, having been rebuffed by Geisinger, the record indicates that Wise renewed his request to receive inpatient admission with his physicians at Alley who had been treating him for his mental illness … Alley, like Geisinger, performed the requested evaluation and, thus, also engaged in the process of providing voluntary inpatient treatment in accordance with Section 103. The fact that Alley did not itself provide inpatient mental health treatment within its own facility is of no consequence for purposes of determining whether its actions were within the scope of the MHPA, as the statute does not require the facility at which an individual is requesting evaluation for voluntary inpatient care to actually provide such care. Rather, it is sufficient that the facility “provides for the diagnosis, treatment, care or rehabilitation of mentally ill persons, whether as outpatients or inpatients.””
“It is reasonable to expect that a facility which offers such professional mental health diagnostic services on an outpatient basis is capable of arranging for appropriate voluntary inpatient care with a suitable provider if the facility’s medical personnel determine it is warranted. Consequently, we conclude that, because both Geisinger and Alley examined and evaluated Wise in response to his request for voluntary inpatient mental health treatment, their actions were within the scope of Section 103.”
Source Matos v. Geisinger Medical Center, J-38A-B-2024.
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