Court Sorts Out a Claims Double Standard
By Robert Warne - September 24, 2002The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco was recently called in to determine if an employee was wrongfully terminated for suing a person who injured her while she was working.
The issue at hand in Jersey v John Muir Medical Center was whether Ester Jersey’s termination from the Walnut Creek hospital violated her constitutional rights.
Jersey had a work comp claim after a head trauma patient in the hospital’s Rehab Unit attacked her. About a year later, after the patient had been discharged she filed suit against the person.
When hospital authorities found out about the suit she was told in a letter that she could either drop the suit and keep her job, or keep the suit and resign.
In part, the letter read, “As you are well aware, it is not uncommon for head trauma patients to exhibit erratic and sometimes violent behavior due to their medical condition, and as such they cannot be held responsible for their actions.
“The mission of this organization states that we are dedicated to improving the health of the communities we serve with quality and compassion. Suing a patient who cannot be held accountable for his actions because of a medical or psychological condition fits neither our mission nor its values.”
Jersey argued that the hospital didn’t even adhere to it’s own position regarding lawsuits against patients. She referred to double standard of how it was fine for the hospital to sue the same patient to recoup workers’ compensation expenses.
But in the end the court sided with the hospital. The hospital was justified in its actions because Jersey was an “at will” employee and because the hospital gave her the choice to either drop the suit or lose her job.
The court said that there are certain constitutional rights that a person couldn’t be fired for exercising, but Jersey’s right to sue wasn’t one of them.
Next stop for this case, the State Supreme Court. | 
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