Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession (7)6 Jun 99

   If that is the employer’s policy, the policy must be applied uniformly to minorities and non-minorities.  UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, MINNESOTA, 1999.

   The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota acknowledged that a registered nurse of Korean descent can sue for national-origin discrimination if she is treated differently than Caucasian nurses.

   The court went on to say that just one no call/no show incident where the nurse neglects to meet with a vulnerable home-health client is sufficient grounds to fire a registered nurse working in home health.

   However, in employment discrimination litigation the court has to look not only at how sensible a disciplinary policy is, but also at whether it is applied on a uniform basis to minorities and non-minorities alike, the court said.

   That being said, the court ruled against the Korean-American nurse. The court conceded the employer had never fired a Caucasian nurse for one no call/no show, but said all of them had completed incident-free probationary periods before their first no call/no show. The Korean-American nurse, the court said, was having difficulty with the employer’s scheduling and billing policies, and thus her no call/no show was not an isolated incident. Thompson v. Olsten Kimberly Qualitycare, Inc., 33 F. Supp. 2d 806 (D. Minn., 1999).