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A Philadelphia jury has ordered a healthcare management company to pay nearly $40 million in damages after finding it partly responsible for the deaths of four people killed by a psychiatric patient who should never have been allowed to buy a gun.

The $39.5 million verdict, returned Tuesday after roughly two weeks of trial and just two hours of deliberation, found Horizon Health Management LLC 35% liable for the killings carried out by Maurice Louis, a former psychiatric patient whose discharge was mishandled when staff failed to submit paperwork that would have blocked him from legally purchasing the firearm he used in the murders.

Sitting in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Sean Kennedy's courtroom, the jury cleared psychiatrist Dr. Waqar Rizvi of any wrongdoing while also assigning 65% of liability to Mercy Catholic Medical Center of Southeastern Pennsylvania — a defendant that had already reached a confidential pretrial settlement and was absent from the proceedings.

The award breaks down to $9.5 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages, with $15 million in punitive damages directed at each defendant. Horizon will cover 35% of the compensatory damages plus its full share of punitive damages. Because Mercy settled before trial, it is not bound by the jury's verdict.

"Any time 12 citizens come together and hold a corporate wrongdoer accountable is a good day for the civil justice system," said plaintiffs' attorney Jeffrey P. Goodman of Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky PC. "For seven years, Horizon has refused to accept any responsibility whatsoever for this tragedy, and today the jury told them they were wrong."

Co-counsel Colin Burke of Kline & Specter PC called it an emotionally draining case and said the jury's message was unambiguous. "Horizon's conduct was outrageous and was a cause of these four preventable deaths," he said.

Rizvi's attorney, George H. Knoell III of Kane Pugh Knoell Troy & Kramer LLP, pushed back on allegations that his client had been unavailable to treat Louis when he presented at the hospital. "It was proven he was available," Knoell said, adding that the doctor always responded promptly when called.

Horizon's legal team did not respond to requests for comment.

The case is Behrens v. Mercy Catholic Medical Center of Southeastern Pennsylvania et al., No. 200501253, in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.