Abuse Reporting: Court Allows Family To Sue Nurse, Agency.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
June 2016
State law for the prevention of abuse of vulnerable adults defines mandatory reporters in very broad terms. The definition of a mandatory reporter includes employees of healthcare facilities and employees of home health agencies. A mandatory reporter, when there is reasonable cause to believe that abandonment, abuse, financial exploitation or neglect of a vulnerable adult has occurred, must report immediately to the department of social and health services, and in the case of a physical assault also to law enforcement.
The law does not expressly say that a vulnerable adult harmed by a mandatory reporter’s failure to report has the right to sue the mandatory reporter. However, it is implicit in the law’s intent and purpose and its legislative history that such a right should exist. The nurses in this case could have had reasonable cause to believe that abuse was occurring, based on what they saw and what another resident of the adult family home told them. The nurses had a mandatory legal duty to report.
SUPREME COURT OF WASHINGTON May 12, 2016A home health agency had the contract to provide services to some of the residents of an adult family home. A nurse from the agency was caring for her patient in the patient’s room when she heard a "thump" from the next room. In the next room an elderly resident who was not a patient of the nurse’s agency had just fallen in the presence of an unlicensed employee of the home. The employee explained to the nurse that the resident fell often and the owner was going to be notified. The owner, who is a nurse, came and put the patient back in bed, without any assessment or care. The next day a second nurse from the same agency was told by a patient of hers that the owner was giving the resident in question lots of morphine.
The first nurse had also been told several times before by the same patient who told the second nurse that the resident in question was getting a lot of morphine. When the second nurse went to check she observed the owner dragging the resident into the bathroom. Her legs were not moving and she appeared to be heavily sedated or comatose. The nurse looked at the chart and found no order for morphine. The second nurse phoned the department of social and health services and left a message.
The patient died later that day from acute morphine intoxication. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. The next day the two nurses spoke to each other about the situation and prepared an incident report for their agency.
The Supreme Court of Washington ruled that the state’s vulnerable adult protection law gives the family of the deceased the right to a civil lawsuit against the home health agency. The second nurse was also named as a defendant. The Court said a jury could conclude that the nurses had reasonable cause to believe that the resident was being abused and that their actions, as mandatory reporters of abuse and neglect, were too little too late. The lower court judges were wrong to deny the family their day in court.
Kim v. Home Health, __ P. 3d __, 2016 WL 2756026 (Wash., May 12, 2016).
More references from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/abuse-reporting-nurse.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/abuserpt.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/abusereport.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/abuse-patient.htm