I’ve never thought it made much sense to sue a nurse. Most folks know that nurses are not in the
health care business to make the big bucks.
They do the “scut” work of cleaning up smelly messes, changing bloody
bandages, and taking verbal abuse from other providers higher up on the food
chain. They spend more than 7 minutes
with each of their patients trying to be sure they understand how the patient
is feeling. They are also skilled code
breakers, being able to decipher the most mystifying handwriting on the
planet. Finally, they tend to show up in
the courtroom parking lot driving beat up old cars. Their hands, reddened from so much washing,
usually clutch shredded tissues as they try to stop crying long enough to
answer questions posed by lawyers and judges.
Most jury members feel compassion and appreciation for nurses.
Apparently, most people agree with me. Even in malpractice cases where a nurse’s
mistake has cost a hospital millions of dollars, the hospital rarely sues the
nurse to get its money back. But an
interesting case this year deviates from the norm.
In 2007, Nurse White was a traveling nurse for Cross
Country Travcorps. As part of her job,
she worked for a major North Carolina hospital.
One of her patients was an infant who died. The parents sued the hospital claiming that
the death resulted from White’s carelessness.
The hospital agreed to mediate the case with the baby’s family and
notified White’s employer of the mediation.
Travcorps decided not to participate in the negotiations. The hospital settled the family’s claims for
$2 million. The hospital then sued
Travcorps and Nurse White to recoup the $2 million. It claimed that Travcorps failed to insure
White’s competence. Because Travcorp was
White’s employer, the hospital looked to the company for reimbursement of its
losses. Travcorp then filed a claim
against its employee, Nurse White. The
case is still in the court system, so it will be some time before we learn the
outcome. Yet, the Travcorps case has
already taught us a valuable lesson.
Even though most health care institutions have malpractice
insurance that covers their employees, I have always recommended that nurses
and other licensed health care employees purchase their own malpractice
insurance. When an employer decides that
its nurse has injured a patient, it will report the nurse to the state Nursing
Board. It will also typically fire the
nurse leaving her with no way to pay a lawyer to help her defend any action
that the Nursing Board decides to take against her. If the nurse has her own malpractice
insurance, that insurance typically provides licensure defense coverage. It will help the nurse pay the costs of
defending her license. Without it, she
may be out of a job and out of a profession.
But the Travcorps case teaches us that in some cases,
nurses may be sued by their own employers in connection with a malpractice
claim. Clearly in such a situation, the
nurse needs her own malpractice insurance to defend the claim. Otherwise, the nurse could lose most of what
she owns.
Nurses ask me whether it is more likely that they will be
sued if they have their own insurance.
In response, I ask how an employer or patient would know that the nurse
has her own insurance. If the nurse
doesn’t volunteer that information, the plaintiffs would not know about the
insurance when they made their decision concerning the appropriate people to
sue in a particular case.
Nurses also ask how much coverage they should purchase. Typically, the nurse just needs minimal coverage
for licensure defense. But as the Travcorps
case illustrates, protecting your license isn’t the only issue. I truly hope Nurse White had her own
malpractice insurance and that the policy limits exceed $2 million. It’s rare for an employer to sue its nurses,
pharmacists, dental hygienists or other employees. But insurance is there for the rare
case. Fortunately, for health care
employees, the policies are usually inexpensive. If you are a licensed health care employee,
please check it out.
