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Singer sues hospital, says staff thought he was mentally ill and wasn't member of Four Tops

The lead singer of the Four Tops said a Detroit-area hospital restrained him and ordered a psychological exam after refusing to believe that he was part of the Motown music group.

Alexander Morris, who is Black, filed a lawsuit Monday against Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Warren, alleging racial discrimination and other misconduct during an April 2023 visit for chest pain and breathing problems.

Hospital staff “wrongfully assumed he was mentally ill when he revealed his identity as a celebrity figure,” the lawsuit says.

Morris is not an original member, but he joined the group in 2019.

The lawsuit says a nurse finally believed Morris was in the Four Tops and the psychological exam was canceled.

The hospital offered a $25 gift card as an apology, but Morris refused to accept it, the lawsuit says.

93 comments

  • I argued like a couple having a fight with a psychiatrist about me being autistic when I was hospitalized once. We had a literal antagonized fight over me being autistic in front of two other doctors. She raised her voice at and wouldn't believe me even though I told her I had been diagnosed by a psychologist that administered the ADOS, have seen said psychologist for months, my friends that are psychologists are confident I'm autistic, and that I was in special ed classes since 4th grade. I was seeking absolutely nothing related to it; I just happened to mention it in passing when I said I didn't like sleeping at the hospital and missed my bed.

    Warning: sarcastic vent session

    • That's someone who needs to be brought before the state medical board. I hope you filed a complaint!

    • I had a ER guy fight me on me knowing what kidneys are, and if I'm having kidney pain or not. I have really bad memory loss so I was all kinds of flustered, eventually I remember that I didn't diagnose myself, a doctor did! A doctor told me it was kidney pain. That fucking weasel wouldn't listen to me for anything. Then he eventually agreed after seeing xrays, sent me to a kidney specialist, and she looked at both doctors diagnosis and said ''these guys are idiots.... see the L the xray tech typed in next to your kidney with the dark spot, yeah that's the Left kidney, your pain is behind your right kidney, The left has never hurt, correct?'' She was correct. Turns out I had referred pain from a spinal issue. She figured it out because I was sitting weird, and she was like, why do you sit like that? ''Oh, the pain goes away when I sit like this, but it comes back when I stand up''. ''yeah that's a spinal issue, kidney pain doesn't present that way at all.'' So basically, some doctors suck at bedside manner AND being a doctor.

      • A large portion of medical practicioners are absolutely fucking insane. It's no wonder people have a massive distrust of healthcare. How is it possible that medical research and medical practice have such vastly different kinds of people in them?

        It's scary when you realize that a medical degree is just a degree like any other, and that a lot of those people went through college the same way as any other person, probably not paying attention 90% of the time, and cheating on most of their assignments... your likelihood of having a dysfunctional doctor is about the same as your likelihood of having a dysfunctional tech support specialist.

    • It's never too late to file a complaint. I'm sorry you went through that, but please help others that come after you.

    • I fucking hate psychiatrists. I've seen plenty and never met a good one.

      The problem with them is that they're not educated on the subject they're supposed to act as experts on. A psychologist is a scientist who becomes a medical professional. But a psychiatrist is a general practitioner who becomes a brain professional. They're not qualified and they don't know what they're talking about. A psychologist knows about the stages of development, the mechanisms of trauma, the structure of the brain, etc. A psychiatrist knows how to prescribe antibiotics and start an IV. It's not a transferable skillset! They are given very little actually relevant education, and they are never taught how to use the scientific method. Every brain is different and understanding a patient's mind is always a scientific problem. You don't learn how to do that in medical school.

      • I disagree. Generally speaking, psychologists aren't competent either. Psychiatrists at least know about the human body, its interactions, and psychopathology in depth. Psychologists study the things you mentioned, but many fail to study the biological parts and how deep psychopathologies can go.

        Therefore, I've encountered many psychologists who think that all problems are caused by the environment, by inner (often cognitive) processes, etc. They fail to understand severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and regularly make one of two mistakes (if not both in different contexts): downplay the severity of psychosis and mania/hypomania or think the mildest symptom is psychosis or mania/hypomania.

        Also, many psychologists I've known and seen lean into the antipsychiatry movement. This may not be a problem when treating, say, mild to moderate depressions of a certain reactive nature. They might advise not to take medication and, indeed, medication may not be necessary for these cases. But to do the same for endogenous recurrent depressions and, again, severe mental disorders is borderline clinical negligence.

        Finally and in the same vein, many psychologists do not understand how dependent on the physiological are phenomena such as behavior and beliefs. They often picture our mental experience as mostly free, perhaps influenced by many factors (e.g., psychoanalysis), yet ultimately driven by ourselves. I disagree. I disagree not only because there are many scientific observations to the contrary, but because my own experience has been ever-changing by the silliest of things, like medication for physical illnesses, food, weather conditions, etc. Anecdote incoming: >!Traits that psychologists would try to explain away, treat in talk therapy, and solidify as part of my personality were mere consequences of the physiological and went away immediately after I stopped the causes. The average psychiatrist would find this obvious, while psychologists were often surprised.!<

        If I may add, both psychiatrists and psychologists face a profound ignorance about the things they study. Psychology has tried to explain them, and in this effort it has created dozens of different and incompatible schools of thought (e.g., psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitivism, etc.). Psychiatrists are also at a loss in the definitive hows, and I should add there's also dense theory behind it (it did not stop with Emil Kraeplin or Karl Jaspers). If you ask me, I wouldn't consider one more scientific than the other just because one created more paradigms/theories; if anything, remaining observant and pragmatic sounds to me more scientific (in both disciplines), but that's a whole new conversation...

  • Yikes! But I could totally see this scenario happening lol. Maybe he came off agitated, manicky (he's in the hospital, maybe he's panicking or upset or whatever). Then he says he's famous too so the doctor was like oh ok, grandiose delusional. Check, check, and check. Assuming he doesn't already have a psych history, I don't see how they would've came to the mental illness conclusion if he was simply calmly saying who he was lol I mean that would've been really stupid

    • Then he says he’s famous too so the doctor was like oh ok, grandiose delusional.

      I'm more convinced that they had no fucking clue who the Four Tops even were. It's 2024 and this guy is all "you don't know who I am!" and they're like "you're too fucking right we don't" because what fucking nurse just out of medical school is listening to or even knows of the existence of the fucking Four Tops.

      They probably thought he was just spouting geriatric fucking nonsense.

      "I don't know, something about four tops? He's only wearing one top, no undershirt."

      • Oh yep, you're right about the dementia angle. And even if they were Four Tops fan... you just joined in 2019! Who's gonna know??

  • I wonder how many crazy people they've had that also claimed to be a member of the Four Tops for this to happen.

    "I used to be one of the Four Tops!"

    "Sure you did Peter, now let's get these sleeves tied nice and tight..."

  • Now do all of Metallica's bassists since Cliff Burton.

    Now that my throwaway joke is out of the way, it's interesting to me how much judgment and hate there is for those with mental health issues that people are positively angry that they might be confused for someone with (or maybe even actually have) mental health issues.

    Devil's Advocate incoming:

    Let's be real, the members of the Four Tops are fucking old. It could literally be fucking dementia. This guy could genuinely have mental health problems.

    Why is he so scared of being admitted to a mental health facility? Because deep down everyone knows exactly how fucked up those facilities are and exactly how much agency they take away from you when you're in one.

    The reason the fear of getting put in one is so visceral is because everyone knows it becomes really difficult to get back out when you're in an endless quest to prove your own sanity and everyone thinks you're insane (and maybe you really are!). The reality is that the systems and how we handle mental illness need to change as well as the judgments of the people who need help. Like, maybe taking away all their personal agency isn't the answer.

    People won't seek out help if the response is to sue over the very idea that maybe we might actually need help. He's fucking ancient, he very well could be experiencing dementia, and that could have been an honest fucking mistake on the part of the hospital staff because he's literally an old man exhibiting dementia symptoms but because of who he is instead we're running with the story that his mind is a steel trap and never wavers? Fuck me, get out of here with that nonsense. Old people get old and their minds get frail, its totally fucking possible. (I can't find his exact age, but his personal Facebook shows he's got a full head of gray hair and miles of wrinkles. Black don't crack so this guy is fucking old.)

    No, it would be way healthier if people could be open to the possibility (especially in advanced old age!) that maybe, just maybe, they could be susceptible to mental health issues instead of freaking out and fucking suing people.

    Two things can be true at once: He can be a member of the Four Tops and he also could have been exhibiting dementia symptoms in front of mental health professionals.

93 comments