Sexual Relationship With Patient: Female + Female Can Lead To Negligence Lawsuit
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
June 1997
Quick Summary: A female nurse developing a sexual relationship with a female patient is professional negligence. A thirty-three-year-old married female patient was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for two months for treatment for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation and a personality disorder. She had been a victim of childhood and adolescent sexual abuse, , according to the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin.
The nurse was ruled negligent for forming a sexual relationship with a vulnerable patient in her care. The hospital was ruled negligent because its staff failed to detect what was going on and put a stop to it, even though an inappropriate countertransference reaction had been noted in the patient’s chart. Wright vs. Hospital, 557 N.W. 2d 846 (Wis. App., 1996).