Quick Summary: A healthcare professional requested by a law enforcement officer to collect a blood or urine sample for criminal evidence is not liable in a civil suit for damages, unless the healthcare professional intentionally harms the patient or acts with utter disregard for the patient’s safety in collecting the sample.  UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, ILLINOIS, 1999.

   The patient agreed to be brought in by paramedics to the hospital’s emergency room after she hit a parked car, then declined medical treatment and wanted to leave. She was detained ten minutes by a hospital security guard while the police were called. The police came, placed her under arrest for DUI and told the physician and nurse to draw a blood sample, even though the patient refused her consent to blood being drawn.

   The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois threw out the civil rights lawsuit the patient filed against the hospital.

   Healthcare professionals who are directed by law enforcement officers to collect samples of blood or urine for evidence and who do so in good faith and with due care cannot be sued for their actions, the court said, and there is no requirement for them to second-guess whether or not the officer has probable cause. Ruppel v. Ramseyer, 33 F. Supp. 2d 720 (C.D. Ill., 1999).