Home Health: Employment Law - Defamation Suit Filed By Nurse Thrown Out By Court
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
July 1997
Quick Summary: It is not defamation for a home health agency to send a letter informing its clients that the nurse who had been caring for them is no longer employed by the agency and is no longer authorized by the agency to provide nursing services on behalf of the agency.
A statement of this nature does not convey a defamatory message about the nurse and does not do damage to a nurse’s professional reputation.
SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MAINE, 1997.Because of two lapses in IV technique, a home health agency felt it best to terminate a nurse. Other nurses at the agency were told she had been fired "for several incidents" and were told nothing more. Clients were sent a letter advising that the nurse was no longer employed by the agency and was not authorized to provide nursing services to clients on the agency’s behalf. None of this conveyed a specific message about the nurse which could be considered damaging to her professional reputation and grounds for a lawsuit for defamation, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine ruled in a recent case.
As required by law, the agency also sent the state board of nursing a detailed statement of its reasons for terminating this nurse. The court ruled this also did not give the nurse grounds for a defamation lawsuit, as the law required every employer of professional nurses to send in a report of a nurse’s termination and gave the employer legal immunity for doing so.
McCullough vs. Nursing Agency, 691 A. 2d 1201 (Me., 1997).