HELENA -- Anaconda-Deer Lodge County was not negligent in the 1997 death of a Montana State Hospital patient who froze to death after walking away from the hospital, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in rejecting a wrongful death appeal.

In a unanimous decision, a five-judge panel of the court concluded the county was not responsible for protecting 21-year-old Zachary Eves Bear Don't Walk of Billings from harm, and upheld a summary judgment granted to the county by a District Court.

Bear Don't Walk committed himself to the facility in late 1996, but left the hospital in March 1997 and walked into the snowy countryside.

His body was found several weeks later in a field 6 miles from the hospital. An autopsy report concluded he died of hypothermia.

Hospital staff called authorities after discovering Bear Don't Walk's disappearance, but were told by a dispatcher that police had no legal basis to stop and detain him because he was a voluntary patient, the opinion stated.

Staff members did not ask for a search and rescue, and police did not initiate one. Instead, a county police officer kept lookout for Bear Don't Walk during routine patrols of the area he was believed to be.

Bear Don't Walk's body was found by a rancher checking his fence southeast of Warm Springs.

His mother, Helen Eves, sued the county and 10 unidentified people in 2003, claiming they were negligent for not training employees to handle searches for mental patients, and for not contacting search and rescue personnel in a timely manner.

Eves said the county had a ''special relationship" to her son and was, therefore, obligated to find and protect him.

In the ruling, Justice Bill Leaphart wrote that government officials generally do not owe a duty to specific members of the public, only to the public as a whole. Four recognized exceptions to that doctrine do not apply in this case, Leaphart wrote.