This article discusses the case of Thompson versus Patton in which the Supreme Court of Alabama reviewed the trial court’s decision to grant a motion for summary judgment in favour of the defendant in a malpractice suit alleging negligence by a psychiatrist who discharged a patient from the hospital 3 days before the patient’s suicide. At issue was whether the testimony of the plaintiff’s expert was sufficient to establish proximate causation between the psychiatrist’s actions & the patient’s death. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision.