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I'm an RN from New Jersey and used to work in Texas
for about two years. I received mail from an attorney
of the family of a patient who died three years ago.
According to the letter, the family sued the facility
where I used to work and five nurses for negligence.
I'm not one of the defendants, but the attorney wanted
my deposition.
I called the law firm and left a message on the machine
to acknowledge that I received the letter, but that
I don't have any recollection of the incident. The law
firm called back, still wanting my deposition and wanted
to arrange to meet with me.
I read the nurses' notes of the incident and my name
was not there, so why would they ask for my deposition
since I don't have any recollection of it? Besides,
that was three years ago.
Should I get a lawyer for this? Does malpractice insurance
cover the attorney's expenses? What should I do?
~W.P.
If you were paying malpractice insurance premiums
at the time this incident occurred, you should contact
that insurance company without delay. There are two
types of liability insurance: One covers you for all
incidents that occurred during the time you were paying
premiums, even if you no longer carry that insurance,
and a second covers you for all lawsuits which arise
during the time you are paying premiums, even if the
event which prompted the lawsuit occurred at a time
before you began paying premiums.
If you have the latter type of coverage, contact
your present carrier without delay. Your insurance company
may even provide an attorney to represent you at the
deposition. Your specific policy of coverage would state
just how much attorney assistance will be provided.
If you do not have insurance coverage relative to this
patient's death, do not upset yourself. You will survive
this experience.
Even though you feel you have nothing to contribute,
the attorney requesting this deposition may want to
ask questions about staffing ratios, your former co-workers
or nursing supervisors. The questions may be about why
you left that job. The attorney who requests the deposition
pays for the deposition and if you are in another state,
the attorney will come to your state for the deposition,
which usually takes place at a local law office or in
a hotel meeting room with a court reporter present.
This type of deposition is part of the "discovery"
phase of a lawsuit; the plaintiff's (patient's or patient's
estate's) lawyer is discovering more facts relative
to the case that support his/her theory of liability.
Defining 'abandonment'
A friend of mine offered to go to the ER. The nursing
supervisor, who was requesting a nurse then, said she
didn't want him there. Because she said enough nurses
were in ICU, my friend said he would go home, which
he did.
The supervisor said this constituted abandonment. What
constitutes "abandonment"?
~S.F.
Abandonment can be defined differently, depending
upon the situation in which it occurs. In the scenario
you describe, the employee abandoned his job by leaving
the work site during working hours without permission
of his supervisor.
The hospital would be correct in calling this "job
abandonment." Since the employee had not begun
work duties in a particular area of the hospital and,
more particularly, since he had not assumed responsibility
for any particular patient or group of patients, your
scenario would not be correctly labeled "patient
abandonment."
Patient abandonment occurs in the hospital when
a patient is left without a competent person to care
for him.
Rather than focus on what a nurse did or didn't do to
cause the abandonment, the situation is defined from
the patient's perspective of being "without."
Having said that, the patient is not "without
a nurse" just because the nurse is off the floor
at a meal break or even off the premises, if the nurse
who left had obtained a competent person-usually another
nurse-to assume responsibility for the patient even
if it were for a temporary period of time.
Patient abandonment might be more accurately defined
by defining what it is not. Failing to call and failure
to show up for work in a hospital at the appointed time
is job abandonment, not patient abandonment.
Failing to show up for a home care case may be patient
abandonment if the patient was "without" a
responsible person to take care of them.
Refusing to accept responsibility for an assignment
for which the nurse is unqualified is not patient abandonment.
It may be cause for dismissal, but it is not patient
abandonment.
For an abandonment to take place, the nurse must
have unconditionally accepted responsibility for and
assumed care of a particular patient or patients and
then left them "without" a nurse to care for
them.
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