Nurse Preceptors: Nursing Student's Discrimination Lawsuit Thrown Out By Court.

Nurse Preceptors: Nursing Student's Discrimination Lawsuit Thrown Out By Court.

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The minority former nursing student cannot sue for employment discrimination over his dismissal from nursing school based on poor performance appraisals by the hospital nurses who supervised his clinical placement. There was no employment relationship between the student and the hospital where he attempted to perform certain patient-care services as part of his nursing program at the college.

The nursing student was not paid by the hospital and his activities at the hospital were directed by his college, not the hospital. The nurse preceptors volunteered and got no added compensation for their services supervising students. The college made the decision to dismiss him from the program, not the nursing preceptors.

That was a decision that involved governmental authority, the college being a state-run institution. However, the nursing preceptors and the hospital were private parties who by law could not violate the student's Constitutional rights. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT OHIO January 29, 2018

A nursing student at a state educational institution was not allowed to start his clinical placements after he failed his classroom work in nursing theory. Later he reapplied, gained admission and this time completed his nursing theory classes satisfactorily.

For his clinicals he was sent to a private sector hospital where he was supervised by two nurses who were hospital employees who volunteered as preceptors for nursing students. The two nursing preceptors were compelled to report a number of very basic patient care errors to the nursing school faculty who made the ultimate decision whether the student passed or failed his nursing clinical placement. Based on the nurses' reports the nursing school failed the student's clinical work and dismissed him from the program.

The former student is a minority and the two preceptor nurses are Caucasian. The former student sued the nursing school, the hospital and the two nurses for race discrimination in employment and violation of his Constitutional rights. The US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio threw out the lawsuit.

For purposes of antidiscrimination law a nursing student is not considered an employee of a healthcare facility where he or she is sent for a clinical placement. A student does not enjoy protection from discrimination in employment in a clinical placement setting, the Court ruled. There being no employment relationship, the two nurses were not supervisors and were not legally subject to liability for employment discrimination.

Only a governmental agency or person acting under governmental authority can violate a person's Constitutional rights. The college is a state institution, but the hospital and the nurses did not become part of a state institution simply by accepting nursing students from the college. It was the college and not the hospital or the nurses who decided to dismiss the student. Reeves v. State, 2018 WL 582555 (S.D. Ohio, January 29, 2018).