The court will not dismiss the nurse’s lawsuit against her employer without giving her her day in court.  UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MONTANA, 1997.

  The U.S. District Court for the District of Montana acknowledged that withholding food from a nursing home resident or instructing other staff to do so is patient abuse and grounds to report a nurse to the state board and to fire the nurse.

  At the same time, the court acknowledged that falsely reporting a nurse to the board for an incident that cannot be substantiated is grounds for a civil lawsuit for defamation of character and for damage to a nurse’s professional reputation.

  Firing a nurse for an incident that cannot be substantiated is also termination without just cause. Assuming the employee has successfully completed the probationary period of employment, it is grounds for a wrongful discharge lawsuit.

  The court did not give the employer a summary judgment. The court ruled there were valid general legal grounds for the nurse's lawsuit. And if the nurse could prove in a civil trial that she was reported and fired without adequate proof of the underlying incident, she would win her lawsuit. Ruzicka v. Nursing Home, 45 F. Supp. 2d 809 (D. Mont., 1997).