September 1998

  Quick Summary: "She hit me!" is hearsay but the hearsay rule has an exception for a patient's excited utterance, which can be used as evidence of abuse by a caregiver.

   No one else was in the resident’s room when a nurse allegedly slapped her across the face for pushing away her meal tray. The resident claimed the nurse knocked her glasses off, but they were folded on the bedside table when another nurse came in to see what was going on.

   However, the second nurse had gone to the room because she heard the resident cry out, "She hit me. She hit me." The resident had a fresh abrasion to her cheek, which the second nurse photographed for the record. A charge of abuse was filed, and sustained by state authorities.

   The first nurse appealed, on grounds the second nurse’s testimony about the resident’s cry was hearsay that should not have been allowed as evidence against her.

   The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania overruled the hearsay objection. The resident’s excited utterance, as it should be termed in legal parlance, was not objectionable as evidence just because it was hearsay.