Lindsay Clancy and her ex-husband both filed lawsuits over their children’s deaths. Where do those cases stand?

As Lindsay Clancy awaits word on the future of her criminal case following last week’s mistrial, attorneys for the Duxbury mother and her ex-husband continue to pursue civil lawsuits against the health care providers who treated her before she strangled her three children in 2023. 

“We would not be here today but for the negligence of her doctors and medical providers,” Rosemary Scapicchio, one of Clancy’s attorneys, told reporters Friday after Clancy’s murder trial ended with a hung jury. 

“All of this was caused by the failures of the medical profession,” added Andrew Meyer Jr., another Clancy attorney. “They dropped the ball.”

Clancy’s lawsuit, filed in January, accuses her mental health care providers of failing to diagnose her with bipolar disorder and of prescribing her a laundry list of pharmaceuticals that allegedly triggered a psychotic break. Her former husband, Patrick Clancy, has also raised similar claims against some of her providers in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Lindsay Clancy says her mental health began to deteriorate after she gave birth to her third child in May 2022. By Jan. 24, 2023, her lawyers allege Clancy was “severely depressed with suicidal thoughts” and experienced an auditory hallucination that told her, “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself.” 

She proceeded to strangle 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan in the family’s basement, allegedly telling each child, “Go to God, baby,” while acting in “a dissociative ‘dream-like state,’” according to the lawsuit. Clancy then attempted suicide, paralyzing herself in the process. 

At her trial, she raised what is commonly known as an insanity defense as she argued she could not be held criminally responsible for the killings in light of her mental health. Prosecutors tried Clancy on three counts of first-degree murder, arguing that although she was struggling with her mental health at the time of the killings, she was still able to tell right from wrong and could have stopped herself. 

The deliberating jury of nine women and three men remained deadlocked, and Judge William Sullivan ultimately declared a mistrial. The Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office has not yet said whether it plans to retry Clancy on first-degree murder, reduce the charges, negotiate a plea deal, or dismiss the case. 

What to know about Lindsay Clancy’s civil lawsuit

In the meantime, Clancy’s civil suit has crawled along in Norfolk Superior Court, where there are no hearings currently scheduled in the case.

Among the 11 defendants are several providers who testified during Clancy’s trial, including psychiatrists Dr. Jennifer Tufts and Dr. Alia Goodheart, psychiatric nurse practitioners Rebecca Jollotta and Julie Paul, and mental health counselor Latiesha Dukes. 

The lawsuit also names several hospitals or programs where Clancy received treatment: Aster Mental Health, South Shore Health, McLean Hospital, and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island. The final two defendants are Dr. Zobeida Diaz and Dr. Elizabeth Madva — two psychiatrists who treated Clancy at Women & Infants and McLean, respectively. 

Tufts, who practices with Aster, filed a demand for a medical malpractice tribunal last month — a request echoed in a separate filing from Jollotta and Paul, who both treated Clancy at South Shore Hospital’s Perinatal Behavioral Health Program. According to the Massachusetts Medical Society, a medical malpractice tribunal consists of a judge, an attorney, and a health care provider who can review the preliminary evidence and determine whether it is sufficient for the case to proceed to trial. 

In their filing, attorneys for Aster alleged Clancy never told Tufts she was experiencing hallucinations, or that she had thoughts of harming herself or her children. 

Jollotta, meanwhile, “initiated appropriate, evidence-based pharmacologic treatment for suspected bipolar-spectrum illness, including but not limited to mood stabilizers and/or antipsychotic medications,” South Shore Health’s lawyers argued. Both Jollotta and Paul “complied with the standard of care,” they added. 

What to know about Patrick Clancy’s civil lawsuit

Patrick Clancy’s wrongful death lawsuit also remains pending in Norfolk Superior Court, with a hearing scheduled for Oct. 28. His complaint — which names Tufts, Jollotta, Aster, and South Shore Health — accuses Clancy’s providers of misprescribing a “bevy of diverse and powerful medications” that purportedly exacerbated her mental health struggles. 

All four defendants jointly filed a motion to dismiss in April, arguing they did not owe the Clancy children a duty of care. The defendants also maintain they are shielded under a state law that says mental health professionals aren’t legally obligated to warn or protect potential victims unless the patient in question has either a history of physical violence or the intent and ability to follow through on an explicit threat they’ve told their provider.

Like Tufts, Jollotta told jurors in Clancy’s criminal trial that Clancy did not report thoughts of harming her children. 

Attorneys for Patrick Clancy opposed the motion to dismiss, saying he “specifically alleges that Lindsay communicated to [her mental health care providers] that ‘she was both suicidal and homicidal as to her children.’” According to the opposition, Lindsay Clancy “will testify when she is deposed in this case” that she told her providers about these thoughts of harm. 

Patrick Clancy’s attorneys further argued that the so-called “duty to warn” statute does not come into play here because he has accused his ex-wife’s providers of negligent treatment wherein the deaths of the Clancy children were “the reasonably foreseeable result of their malpractice.”

What comes next?

Patrick Clancy is being represented by Todd & Weld attorneys Howard Cooper and Maria Davis. Lindsay Clancy’s civil team includes Scapicchio, who works primarily as a criminal defense attorney, as well as medical malpractice experts Meyer and Bill Thompson.

“We plan on holding each and every doctor and each and every hospital responsible for how they failed Lindsay, time and time and time again,” Scapicchio told reporters last Friday. 

“But for right now, she has to go through a second trial because of their negligence,” Scapicchio continued, referring to the possibility of a retrial. “And it’s devastating — it’s devastating to her, it’s devastating to her family. This is a nightmare that’s never going to end.”

She also called for improvements to maternal mental health care, attacking the use of the term “baby blues” to describe postpartum depression and mood swings as both sexist and belittling.

“We need to make sure that when there is postpartum or maternal mental health, that these doctors start listening to women,” Scapicchio added. “Because that’s not what they’re doing right now, and they’re doing a disservice to the entire population of women that need care after they have a child.”

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between. She has been covering the Lindsay Clancy murder case since January 2023.