Can you sue your instructor?

Nursing Students General Students

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It is my understanding that anyone who has a license can be sued. Is this true, how hard or easy is it. Anyone have any experience with this?

Specializes in Trauma.
Technically, that's true but, unless you have a witness who's willing to testify or a tape recording verifying the conversation, then it's your word against theirs and the court isn't going to give you much unless you have some other proof. Tape recording and, of course, documentation is best because witnesses can crap out on you.

Exactly! But if someone heard the conversation (ANYONE), then a verbal agreement could very well be legal and binding. Or, like you said..if no one heard and there was tape recording, it is going to boil down to he said/she said and would more than likely end with the outcome not wanted by the her. If she DOES go to court on a he said/she said basis then the judge is going to see that she has no solid evidence backing her claim. It's all about PROVING your claim with proof and not words. Let's not forget that the university would back this professor in a case like this. Either way, it makes no sense to press on with something like this. The cons far out weigh the pros. There would be too much money and time spent on this and in the end, she might regret it because of the results. It's better to lick your wounds and walk away and press on elsewhere.

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A lot of this depends on what kind of options are available. If you can get into another program then, it might make sense to walk away. But, some programs won't take you with previous failures. And, of course, there's waiting lists to consider as well.

And it's not just what was said that matters. There's got to be some manual somewhere that spells out procedures that instructors have to follow when they fail students. As I recall, the OP said this instructor didn't even bother to give her the written midterm or final clinical evaluations which, I know is required at my school so ... depending on what the policies and procedures are, you might be able to nail them on that regardless of what was said.

:typing

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Specializes in Developmental Disabilities, LTC.

I tried so hard to resist posting in this thread...but I just gotta.

The only thing I wanted to say was: One of problems the OP had was in calculating a med dose for a peds pt. If this case were to actually make it in front of a jury or a judge, you know the defense atty would bring up the fact that one of the OPs errors made in clinical could have taken a child's life. Even though we're all allowed to make mistakes in clinical & clinical is supposed to be a learning experience, I don't think judge/jury would care because bottom line, the mistake could have taken a child's life.

I'm not saying it's right - I'm just trying to point out that a group of jurors would be lay-people that wouldn't focus so much on the fact that we're all allowed to make mistakes, but more on the fact that a mistake made by the OP could have potentially resulted in the death of a child. I would think once they heard there was a chance of that even happening, they wouldn't care about anything else, including the OPs years of experience as an LPN, the lack of written evals/expectations, nothing.

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Specializes in High Risk In Patient OB/GYN.

And to the poster who said that it would be realized easily

If you have a 3 day old neonate, that child could easily be 3lbs OR 3kg, and there'd be a heck of a problem dispensing meds safely with that error. This could easily be missed by pharmacy and other nurses.

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Ok, I missed the med error which, I guess was posted on another thread? Because I didn't see it posted here. That would definitely make it a tougher case.

:typing

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And to the poster who said that it would be realized easily

If you have a 3 day old neonate, that child could easily be 3lbs OR 3kg, and there'd be a heck of a problem dispensing meds safely with that error. This could easily be missed by pharmacy and other nurses.

Or doctors for that matter. We did have a case where the MD made a similar error and a student caught it.

Nevertheless, I have to agree that once you mention that error to the court, even though it wasn't given then ... it's pretty much game over. You're not going to win.

:typing

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depends if the error was in her first go round, or second, and i cant remember which

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depends if the error was in her first go round, or second, and i cant remember which

I don't think so. If you're going to take a case like this to court, you've got to be squeaky clean. We all know that people make mistakes but, you don't want to be in a situation where they can come at you with anything negative.

And, the purpose of school is to weed out unsafe practitioners. I seriously doubt any court is going to find fault with a program that's anal about med errors.

Plus, the fact that she's already an LPN would raise expectations that she should be more safe than the average student.

Obviously I've done a 180 on this subject but, I didn't realize there was another thread with more info than what was disclosed here.

:typing

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

The bottom line seems to be yes, the OP can sue her instructor. No, the OP isn't at all likely to win her case. I'd be concerned about a countersuit too, but that's a whole different ball of wax.

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Specializes in Peds.
This is rediculous....

Well put KellNY..... We live in a way too sue happy society...

Without knowing the whole story, it doesn't seem to me like a viable case. I used to be a paralegal and from what I know of what happened, the atty. I worked for wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Filing fees for civil suits are quite high and if you want a jury trial, they're even higher. I don't know what they are now but when I left the paralegal field 11 years or so ago, it cost $250 to file a civil suit then more for the jury and I'm sure costs have risen significantly.

I know that in nursing school we were given written and verbal evals. We got continuous feedback good and bad. I never had any issues but there were a couple of people in my class who almost didn't make it for whatever reason. They were kept abreast of the situation.

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I wish! I'd actually like to sue my school for allowing me to pay them for this instuctor to teach. He's so bad at teaching that on our last test, 25 out of 30 got a D or failed. It's the schools fault, in my opinion, because they knew that last semester 50 of 70 students dropped out of his class & only 12 of the ones left even passed it! I am just starting school (I'm 32, stay at home mom, it's been 15+ years) so it's ONLY basic algebra.....nothing confusing or crazy....it shouldn't be that hard to pass his test! Fortunatly for me, I had taken the accuplacer test at school & the highest you can score on comprehension is 12, I got 11.? (something) & I have a A+ in BIO & last semester I only got 3 wrong on my intro to algebra final exam....so clearly it's not me. It cost me $568 for the class, & so far, I dished out $460 in child care, just for that class....if it wasn't for that class, I wouldn't have childcare. Anyways....blah blah blah....! - thinadvisable

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I wanted to put my word in. I attended a highly corrupt school and was failed on a skill. You can look up the thread under 'Advice Needed' which I keep meaning to update. Anyway, at this point the State is investigating because the school is failing students arbitrarily. For all of you that advised to go through the appeals process and chain of command, you are all correct. I did that and it has been a loooooong process but it has all been documented and I did NOT receive due process, which as Jov pointed out awhile back, is your 14th amendment right. There are, unfortunately, some nursing schools who are stuck back in the dark ages and feel they are above the rules of the school and laws of the land. And they are NOT. If every nursing student fought back, things would change. I also agree with those of you who said that if you don't study and work hard, it is ridiculous that someone would blame the instructor. This was not the case for me and I went from a 3.97 GPA to a 2.6GPA because of a corrupt and arbitrary system. So, the State is investigating, and everyone who works at this school who wrongly failed a student should lose their jobs! And, yes, I can sue their pants off because they didn't follow their own rules, contract law, or due process laws (both procedural and substantive)......I hope any student out there who is experiencing this knows that it can be fought! DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. I sent almost 40 pages to the agency who is investigating. (A special thanks to Jov for helping me out in this crazy situation!;) )

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