The Supreme Court justified ending the life of an individual not suffering from any kind of physical pain by acknowledging that physicians who find themselves in a state of necessity are forced to choose the relief of "unbearable suffering" over the effort to preserve life. The case involved Boudewijn Chabot, a Dutch psychiatrist who helped a depressed but otherwise healthy woman to commit suicide in 1991. Chabot, who was found guilty merely because he had not sought an authentic second opinion, received no punishment. The doctor defended his decision to give his patient 20 sleeping pills and a poison mixture to end her life by contending that "intolerable psychological suffering is no different from intolerable physical suffering." The Supreme Court agreed, claiming that a doctor may use the force majeure justification if the patient's suffering does not result from terminal illness or somatic disease.