Age Bias: Nurse Not Able To Prove Her Case.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
November 2016
The nurse claimed she felt her supervisor wanted to force her out because of her age. That is only speculation. The nurse also claimed that other older nurses who had worked at the hospital felt they had been forced out because of their age. That is hearsay and is not admissible in court.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CONNECTICUT September 8, 2016.A staff nurse had worked at the hospital for many years and had a long history of problems with her nursing skills, interpersonal skills and compliance with institutional policies. When a new nursing supervisor was assigned to the unit the nurse came under increasing scrutiny.
Over the next two years, before the nurse was finally terminated, issues came up involving failing to follow policies for intravenous medications, getting in an argument with a pharmacist about those policies in front of the patient and family members, making a patient feel it was a bother to take out his IV, leaving a patient identification label stuck on the outside of the room door, and insisting a patient be sedated for an NG tube insertion.
After her termination the nurse sued for age discrimination, based on a feeling she was forced out due to the fact she had been at the hospital a long time and was making a better salary than other nurses and soon would be eligible for retirement. The US District Court for the District of Connecticut saw plenty of evidence of misconduct justifying termination and no acceptable evidence that age bias had anything to do with the hospital’s decision to terminate the nurse.
Chieppa v. Backus, 2016 WL 4717734 (D. Conn., September 8, 2016).More from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/age-bias-nurse.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/agediscrimination.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/age-discrimination-nurse.htm