Nurses sued!!!!!

RNperdiem, RN · Jan 12, 2009

To be sued, there actually needs to be harm done and it needs proof that you are responsible.

I have never known a nurse to be sued.

I practice safe care and am not worried.

Nurses are not enticing targets because we do not have the big pockets doctors and hospitals have.

If someone sued me for "all you were worth", it wouldn't be that much.

mina123 · Jan 12, 2009

I live in NJ, and as per previous posts went on to look my BON and under disciplinary nurse actions was shocked to see the list of nurses who are under disciplinary actions every month. This really scares me because the hospital where i work has high acuity patients with 1:8 ratio in am shift for me and one nursing assistant for 30 patients. I work very safe, on my own pace but its just so much work to finish in 12 hours that most days i don't even take my mandatory break for lunch, because per management we have to clock out at 7.30pm no exceptions and no overtime. Its really scary, i don't like to rush with my patients, but as we all nurses know there's only so much we all can do!!!!!

diane227, LPN, RN · Jan 13, 2009

Per the labor law if you are an hourly (non-exempt) employee your facility cannot force you to work off the clock. If you are not finished with your work by 7:30 and you are forced to clock out, you must leave the work area. Under the federal labor lay, you must be paid for hours worked. You might want to do a little research and find a copy of this law and present it to your manager. If this does not work, I urge you to call the labor board for your area and make a formal complaint. The overtime they refused to pay is nothing compared to what they may have to pay in fines.

bluemalibu · Jan 20, 2009

To be sued, there actually needs to be harm done and it needs proof that you are responsible.

Unfortunately, this is no where near the truth.

Only certain governmental agencies and specific governmental employees ~working within the scope of their employment~ are immune from litigation brought by individuals.

A mountain of frivolous lawsuits continue to be filed, notwithstanding that there is no culpability whatsoever on the part of the defendant, because those with deep pockets continue to settle these nuisance suites for a fraction of their demands, just to keep from incurring the legal bills that they will incur in a drawn out case.

RDCH · Mar 17, 2011

hi, just wanna ask if iv dislodgement ground for negligence? how about if the patient is a neonate who happens to be moving its extremities causing the iv to be dislodged? is it a ground for revocation of license? or is it just a minor case?

just curious.

BabyLady, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2011

We nurses are always so afraid of losing our license and getting sued for anything we might do or have done wrong. So i was wondering if any of us nurses can share there story of what happen to them? what were the results if they did happen to be sued? Did the BON take away the license or just suspended it? I have met many nurses where there name was picked up in the chart because somewhere along the line they cared about this particular patient but the case most likely always gets settled outside the court. So MY question to all follow nurses is Are we just always worry unneccesary or do nurses really have gotten SUED!!!!!!! Or its just a way of hospital and big business saving money on there man-power and make us nurses really scared of our accountability. I have began to wonder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Personally, I have never understood why nurses walk around freaking out wondering that they are going to get sued all the time. Physicians get sued frequently...yet you see the same ones making some very dumb decisions and they don't seem to think anything of it.

Folks...use some common sense here..the reason why physician's malpratice insurance is in the tens of thousands of dollars per year and a nurse is less than $200 is because we RARELY get sued.

Being called to court, is NOT the same as being called to court to be held liable. Most of the time, you are merely someone there to testify as to what the orders were and give clarification in patient care.

However, anyone that doesn't carry malpractice insurance is crazy...the hospital only covers you if you follow the rules to the letter..they DO NOT cover you if you make a mistake.

BabyLady, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2011

Unfortunately, this is no where near the truth.

Only certain governmental agencies and specific governmental employees ~working within the scope of their employment~ are immune from litigation brought by individuals.

A mountain of frivolous lawsuits continue to be filed, notwithstanding that there is no culpability whatsoever on the part of the defendant, because those with deep pockets continue to settle these nuisance suites for a fraction of their demands, just to keep from incurring the legal bills that they will incur in a drawn out case.

There is absolutely truth to RNperdiem's statement.

"Settling" is not winning a lawsuit...settling is where you choose not to take it to trial and that is a CHOICE. If you make that CHOICE you cannot claim you lost the case anymore than the person who received the settlement can claim they won.

Harm, is a legal requirement to prove damages. If there was no harm, you are not entitled to damages.

For example: You got Patient A and B mixed up and gave Tylenol to A when it was supposed to go to B. That is a medication error...however, if there was no harm, you cannot collect.

More serious note: In our unit, breast milk going to the wrong baby is something that has happened. It is a body fluid..however, unless you can prove little junior contracted Hepatitis from the breast milk exposure, there is no harm.

Damages, have to be based on something. Emotional distress has been blown out of proportion in the media...we hear of these huge settlements getting FILED, but you never really hear the outcomes of very many of them...which I highly suspect is little to nothing, if anything.

BabyLady, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2011

The nurse in the situation did not suffer any disciplinary action because she had followed hospital policy. The plaintiff attorney did not bring charges against her as an individual because she did not carry malpractice insurance and therefore they had nothing to gain by going after her. She had no resources he could get. However, the hospitals limits of liability were only about $500,000 per incident. Had the nurse had a million dollar policy of her own I have no doubt that she would have been sued as an individual.

I'll be honest..I question the accuracy of this. Mainly because while hospitals are required by law to carry Liability Insurance if they want to do business as well as the physician. Nurses are not required to do so.

How did the plaintiff's attorney KNOW that she did not have malpractice insurance? I carry it...no database exists where you can type in my social security number and find which agency my malpractice insurance is with, I am not required to turn it into the state, I am not required to turn it into my employer..so unless I tell someone, nobody knows who I have it with and if you are a DEFENDENT you DO NOT have to answer ANY questions that would case liability to increase for yourself...and that sure as heck would be a good example of it.

Having vs not having liability insurance HAS ZERO LEGAL BEARING in legal liablity. That is like two cars in an accident and claiming that the one that had insurance is automatically at fault. It doesn't work like that. Either it was your fault or it was not.

Also, there is a major legal flaw to your post. EITHER the hospital OR the nurse is at fault. If the jury finds the nurse is at fault, the nurse is an employee of the hospital and if she was acting in accordance to HOSPITAL policy, then it is the HOSPITAL, not the nurse, who is liable. The nurse does not have total autonomy. There is a limit to what she is allowed to decide for herself.

Not having personal assets does not mean that you have "nothing" to go after. Does she not work? I live in a state where auto-insurance is not required..a friend of mine was renting an apartment when he got into a car accident and injured someone. He was held liable to the tune of $130K...his wages are GARNISHED by the court for 50%..the maximum allowed by law...he works under the table at a second job to make up the difference so he can survive.

The hospital having limits per incident is 100% irrelevant in a settlement as well....that does not mean that a jury cannot award more, that means that bonuses may have to be cut for upper management while they dig deep for a payout.

So, that is also untrue that just because you do not have a house, etc..that they cannot go after you, because they absolutely can.

elkpark · Mar 17, 2011

Also, there is a major legal flaw to your post. EITHER the hospital OR the nurse is at fault. If the jury finds the nurse is at fault, the nurse is an employee of the hospital and if she was acting in accordance to HOSPITAL policy, then it is the HOSPITAL, not the nurse, who is liable. The nurse does not have total autonomy. There is a limit to what she is allowed to decide for herself.

The standards in civil law are v. different from the standards in criminal law. In a civil suit, the question of who is responsible is not at all an "either/or" situation. In a case with multiple defendants, the Court can (and routinely does) find that one defendant (in this example, the hospital) was partially responsible (some specific % amount) and another defendant (let's say the nurse) was partially responsible (another specific % amount). The plaintiff can even be found partially responsible, as diane227 noted back in '09 (in that case, any $$$ damages awarded are reduced by the percentage the plaintiff was found to be at fault). Because of this, as soon as a situation occurs that looks like it could end up being a lawsuit, the hospital's legal department will start looking for one or more individuals (for the sake of this discussion, nurses) that the hospital can blame for the incident, and argue in court (if it ever comes to that) that it was that individual's (or multiple individuals') fault the incident occurred, not the the hospital's, in an attempt to reduce the hospital's liability.

When I was working as a hospital surveyor for my state and CMS for several years, I saw this happen all the time. Although our surveys had nothing to do with establishing individual culpability for bad outcomes, we frequently investigated occurrences that were clearly likely to end up as lawsuits farther down the road. In nearly all those situations, by the time we showed up to investigate (and this was often just a day or two after the incident occurred, if it was something really serious), the hospital had identified one or more nurses that it was blaming for the incident, and, in many cases, had already fired those nurses (and reported them to the BON) to show its good faith (Golly, you can't blame us -- how could we have known we had a dangerous, incompetent nurse working for us?? We did everything we're supposed to do to check her/him out when we hired her/him, and s/he hadn't injured/killed anyone before this ... -- all of this matters a lot in a civil case when it comes to dividing up the responsibility). When I reviewed the charts, it was typically obvious that the nurse(s) being scapegoated by the hospital hadn't really done anything worse than have the bad luck to be assigned to that particular client on that particular day -- but the hospital legal and risk management folks had gone over the record with a fine-toothed comb and had found some little thing they could use to claim that the nurse(s) had failed to follow hospital policy/procedure and, therefore, the hospital was not only not defending them (or covering them under the hospital's insurance) but was hanging them out to dry. How many of us are confident that we always follow our employer's established policies/procedures 100%, 100% of the time?? I know I'm not.

Of course, that's only if a case actually goes to trial. Most of this type of case get settled out of court. I personally saw this happen many times (although my involvement with the situation, as a state surveyor, ended long before a lawsuit would be filed, so I have no idea how many of these ended up ever being actual civil complaints).

(Also, the standard for guilt/responsibility in civil cases is not "beyond a reasonable doubt," as in criminal cases, but "a preponderance of the evidence" -- that is, a simple majority of the evidence. And the jury doesn't always have to be unanimous in its findings -- in some states, and in some situations, a majority of the jury is sufficient. That's what makes the idea of a civil suit so scary to potential plaintiffs like hospitals and businesses.)

Having said all that, though, I agree that the risk of an individual nurse getting sued is comparatively low -- it's not something I spend time worrying about. I would never work a day without my own professional Liability Insurance, though.

BabyLady, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2011

The standards in civil law are v. different from the standards in criminal law. In a civil suit, the question of who is responsible is not at all an "either/or" situation.

Fully aware of this...considering my first BS is in Criminal Justice and I interned for one year with the DA's office while in college.

Criminal liability is "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Civil liability is "preponderance of the evidence"...which only means you have to tip the proof scale to 51%.

However, if you read my post, I did not mention anything about criminal cases. My post strictly was limited to civil liability. You can NAME anyone you want as a defendent, but the point of my post is that just because you name someone, does not make them liable, nor is the fact that they carry Liability Insurance make them more liable.

In a case with multiple defendants, the Court can (and routinely does) find that one defendant (in this example, the hospital) was partially responsible (some specific % amount) and another defendant (let's say the nurse) was partially responsible (another specific % amount). The plaintiff can even be found partially responsible, as diane227 noted back in '09 (in that case, any $$$ damages awarded are reduced by the percentage the plaintiff was found to be at fault). Because of this, as soon as a situation occurs that looks like it could end up being a lawsuit, the hospital's legal department will start looking for one or more individuals (for the sake of this discussion, nurses) that the hospital can blame for the incident, and argue in court (if it ever comes to that) that it was that individual's (or multiple individuals') fault the incident occurred, not the the hospital's, in an attempt to reduce the hospital's liability.

Keep in mind my post was referring to the post I reponded to and no other matter.

Your example does not remotely mirror the situation. The PLAINTIFF was found to be 50% reponsible. The poster claimed that the nurse was held 50% liable...this is the portion of the accuracy of the lawsuit that I question. Nowhere did she say that the hospital was held liable at all...she skipped over several major points and said, "Oh, well, the hospital's insurance only covered $500K and the nurse did not have liability insurance."

Uh...civil lawsuits don't work that way. The award has to NAME WHO IS LIABLE..and if you name Defendant A as liable, you cannot go after Defendant B just because A doesn't have anything to take...serious...this is not how ti works in court by any stretch of the imagination.

The case would have boiled down to two questions:

1. Did the nurse act within the policy of the hospital...IF SHE DID, then the case would have found the hospital liable and NOT the nurse. ie. The hospital may have had a policy not permitting the nurses to go to the parking lot with patients for safety reasons.

2. Was the nurse free to make decisions regarding the case at hand...this is most likely what happened in the case...the nurse could have called a security guard to walk the patient to the car for safety reasons and to verify someone else was driving..if they switched places later on, that would have 100% eliminated the nurse's liablity...but that is not what the poster said happened...she said that the "hospital insurance limits was at $500K"...again, read the facts carefully...doesn't work like that in court.

When I was working as a hospital surveyor for my state and CMS for several years, I saw this happen all the time. Although our surveys had nothing to do with establishing individual culpability for bad outcomes, we frequently investigated occurrences that were clearly likely to end up as lawsuits farther down the road. In nearly all those situations, by the time we showed up to investigate (and this was often just a day or two after the incident occurred, if it was something really serious), the hospital had identified one or more nurses that it was blaming for the incident, and, in many cases, had already fired those nurses (and reported them to the BON) to show its good faith (Golly, you can't blame us -- how could we have known we had a dangerous, incompetent nurse working for us?? We did everything we're supposed to do to check her/him out when we hired her/him, and s/he hadn't injured/killed anyone before this ... -- all of this matters a lot in a civil case when it comes to dividing up the responsibility).

Not necessarily. Just because you fire a nurse and report them to the BON does NOT equal automatic fault of the nurse...seriously...surely you know this????? That is why there are attorney's that specialize in employment termination suits. The decision of the other..so the fact that the hospital MADE THE CHOICE to fire the nurse does not mean that the attorney doesn't have TO PROVE the same allegations in court. A good defense attorney can easily argue the firing as inadmissible...because proof of fault has not been established...therefore, the purpose of the entire case.

Good example: Pharmacy mixes an IV drug and passes it onto the nurse, solution is clear, nurse checks the label on the IV bag and checks it against the original order, it matches with potassium within limits of what is recommended. Nurse hooks up the IV bag to the patient which contains a lethal amount of potassium and kills the patient. The next day, pharmacist and RN are fired.

Now...the nurse did her job, but the pharmacist didn't...pharmacist is 100% liable in this case...perfect example of how it could happen.

When I reviewed the charts, it was typically obvious that the nurse(s) being scapegoated by the hospital hadn't really done anything worse than have the bad luck to be assigned to that particular client on that particular day -- but the hospital legal and risk management folks had gone over the record with a fine-toothed comb and had found some little thing they could use to claim that the nurse(s) had failed to follow hospital policy/procedure and, therefore, the hospital was not only not defending them (or covering them under the hospital's insurance) but was hanging them out to dry. How many of us are confident that we always follow our employer's established policies/procedures 100%, 100% of the time?? I know I'm not.

They should go over what happened in detail, that is their entire job. However, this is why juries get involved in civil cases...because courts INTERPRET law, they INTERPRET policy of hospitals...the nurse may think she followed policy or felt that what they claim she violated was vaguely written in policy...that is where a good defense attorney pounces on the holes in the policy...what a "reasonable nurse would know to do".

Of course, that's only if a case actually goes to trial. Most of this type of case get settled out of court. I personally saw this happen many times (although my involvement with the situation, as a state surveyor, ended long before a lawsuit would be filed, so I have no idea how many of these ended up ever being actual civil complaints).

Again, just because the case gets settled out of court does not equal an admission of fault..they also make the plaintiff sign paperwork stating, just that fact.

(Also, the standard for guilt/responsibility in civil cases is not "beyond a reasonable doubt," as in criminal cases, but "a preponderance of the evidence" -- that is, a simple majority of the evidence. And the jury doesn't always have to be unanimous in its findings -- in some states, and in some situations, a majority of the jury is sufficient. That's what makes the idea of a civil suit so scary to potential plaintiffs like hospitals and businesses.)

I have already answered the first part...before I even scrolled down to read what you wrote.

...but the point was should it be scary FOR THE NURSE. My answer was no, because if nurses were sued anywhere near as much as physicians, they would be paying the same in liability insurance.

Trauma Columnist · Mar 17, 2011

We do ask that posters in general not post details of lawsuits that pending/settled as this may not be something you wished posted on the internet.