How To Sue A Hospital For Overstaffing

Transcription

1 COURT OF COMMON PLEAS HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO JAMES JASPER CASE NO State Route 276 Batavia, OH Judge And MINOR CHILDREN OF JAMES AND ELIZABETH JASPER 4972 State Route 276 Batavia, OH And THE ESTATE OF ELIZABETH JASPER, BY AND THROUGH JAMES JASPER, ADMINISTRATOR 4972 State Route 276 Batavia, OH Plaintiffs, vs. JEWISH HOSPITAL, LLC Serve Claire Grandpre Combs, Registered Agent 4600 McAuley Place Cincinnati, OH And MERCY HEALTH PARTNERS OF SOUTHWEST OHIO, INC. AS SUCCESSOR IN INTEREST TO JEWISH HOSPITAL, LLC. Serve Claire Grandpre Combs, Registered Agent 4600 McAuley Place Cincinnati, OH

2 Defendants. COMPLAINT WITH JURY DEMAND COMES NOW Plaintiffs, The Estate of Elizabeth Jasper, James Jasper, and the Jaspers Minor Children, by and through undersigned counsel, and states the following as his Complaint JURISDICTION AND VENUE 1. The deceased, Elizabeth Jasper (hereinafter, Ms. Jasper) resided in the City of Batavia, Clermont County, Ohio, where her Estate is also being probated. 2. At all times relevant, Plaintiff James Jasper (hereinafter Mr. Jasper ) was and is a resident of and domiciled in the City of Batavia, Clermont County, State of Ohio. 3. At all times relevant, Plaintiffs Minor Children of James and Elizabeth Jasper (hereinafter, Jasper Children ) were and are residents of and domiciled in City of Batavia, Clermont County, State of Ohio. 4. Defendant, Jewish Hospital LLC (hereinafter Hospital ) is an Ohio non-profit Limited Liability Company that does business in Hamilton County, Ohio and operates the Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati. 5. The injuries which are alleged to have been caused by the acts and omissions of Defendants in this Complaint were sustained in Stonelick Township, Clermont County, State of Ohio. 6. Clermont Count, State of Ohio is thus the proper venue to grant Mr. Jasper the relief he seeks. 2

3 BACKGROUND 7. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all previous paragraphs as if re-stated herein. 8. From the year 2000 until her death in March of 2013, Ms. Jasper was employed as a Registered Nurse in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit of Jewish Hospital. 9. On March 16, 2013, Ms. Jasper was killed when her vehicle suddenly departed from the road, ramped an embankment, became airborne, and crashed into a tree while driving home from her shift at the Hospital. 10. While employed at Jewish Hospital, Ms. Jasper was typically scheduled to work three 12- hour shifts each week. 11. On Ms. Jasper s shift beginning March 15, 2013 and ending March 16, 2013, she was required to stay at work for an indeterminate amount of time after her regularlyscheduled shift had ended in order to complete some sort of tuberculosis reading. 12. On the same shift, Ms. Jasper worked with and provided help to new nurses working at Jewish Hospital. 13. In 2011, Jewish Hospital came under the ownership of Mercy Health Partners of Southwest Ohio. 14. After Mercy purchased Jewish Hospital, Ms. Jasper s actual working hours routinely and significantly exceeded the hours for which she was scheduled. 15. From 2011 onward, Hospital staff at the time of Ms. Jasper s employment report that the patient workload for each individual nurse steadily increased as the nursing staff present for any given shift steadily decreased. 16. From 2011 onward, there was a consistent shortage of medication and supplies at the Hospital. 3

4 17. From 2011 onward, the Hospitals Bone Marrow Transplant Unit and Intensive Care Unit were regularly understaffed, with only four or five nurses on duty at any given time. 18. As a result of the shortage of nursing staff, nurses at Jewish were often required or asked to work through breaks, work extra shifts in addition to their regular scheduled hours, and/or to stay late. 19. As a result of the nurse shortage, Hospital nurses were routinely and regularly unable to take lunch breaks or to end their shifts on time, causing many of the nurses, including Ms. Jasper, to work while exhausted and hungry. 20. Mercy s management of Jewish Hospital compelled a number of nurses employed there to seek employment elsewhere, resulting in a virtual revolving door of staff at the Hospital. 21. Jewish Hospital possesses a number of CRRT dialysis machines which require special certification for their operation by nurses. 22. By March of 2013, Ms. Jasper was one of only a handful of nurses qualified to work on the Hospital s CRRT dialysis machines. 23. Nurses who were qualified to work on the Hospitals dialysis machines, including Ms. Jasper, were routinely called into work while off-duty to run the machine. 24. At any given time, there was often only one nurse on duty who was qualified to run the dialysis machines. 25. Because of this shortage of qualified nurses on duty, nurses report being effectively forced to choose between temporarily abandoning helpless patients in order to take bathroom breaks, and simply continuing the shift without using the restroom. 4

5 26. These working conditions caused great stress and anxiety among the nursing staff, resulting in nurses behaving irritably and otherwise out of character. 27. Ms. Jasper was also forced to be a counselor for the Hospital s Intensive Care Unit, a position which was to carry with it 300 hours of vacation time, but that also required the counselors, including Ms. Jasper, to teach on their regularly scheduled days off or after their regularly scheduled shift ended. 28. Mercy was notified of the dangers of degradation to both quality of care to patients and the working conditions of nurses by Mary Alliston, Ms. Jasper s supervisor, but willfully and deliberately ignored these warnings. 29. Mary Alliston made Mercy aware that the staffing shortages at Jewish Hospital jeopardized the Hospital s accreditation with the Foundation for Accreditation of Cellular Therapies (FACT), in turn jeopardizing the Hospital s future ability to secure insurance contracts for transplant patients. 30. While employed at the Hospital, Mary Alliston was responsible for the Hospital s compliance with FACT. 31. Prior to Ms. Jasper s death, Mary Alliston expressed concern to her superiors that Ms. Jasper was being worked to death. 32. Despite the above warnings and concerns, Mercy refused to take reasonable steps to assuage the shortage of Bone Marrow Transplant Unit nurses and the shortage of nurses certified to run the Hospital s CRRT dialysis machines. 33. Immediately following Ms. Jasper s untimely death, the Hospital s Director of Nursing, Kathy Smith, called a meeting of the nurses at the Hospital in which she brought the nurses sub sandwiches and expressed to the nurses that she was so sorry about the death 5

6 of Beth, and sorry that they had dropped the ball because the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit had been short-staffed during the shift preceding Ms. Jasper s death. 34. The Bone Marrow Transplant Unit had been busy and understaffed during Ms. Jasper s final shift. 35. During Ms. Jasper s final shift at the Hospital, she complained to other nurses that she was really stressed and hadn t eaten during the shift. 36. The Hospital cancelled the Jasper s health insurance coverage the day after Ms. Jasper was killed. COUNT I WRONGFUL DEATH AGAINST ALL DEFENDANTS 37. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all previous paragraphs as if re-stated herein. 38. The death of the late Elizabeth Jasper on March 16, 2013 was directly and proximately caused by the wrongful acts and conduct of all Defendants. 39. Defendants owed a duty to their employee, Ms. Jasper, to take reasonable precautions for her safety by abstaining from deliberate practices that placed her in a position of unjustifiably high risk. 40. Defendants breached this duty by knowingly and deliberately exhausting Ms. Jasper in conscious disregard of her safety and wellbeing. 41. Elizabeth Jasper s injury was caused due to Defendant s breach. 42. Elizabeth Jasper suffered the injury of death. 43. Defendants failure to fulfill their duty to Ms. Jasper was the direct and proximate cause of Ms. Jasper s injury, because it was foreseeable that automobile crashes would occur without the proper measures to prevent them. 6

7 44. James Jasper, the surviving spouse of the late Elizabeth Jasper, sustained pecuniary loss, mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, and other damages arising out of the death of Richard Campbell. COUNT II - INTENTIONAL TORTIOUS CONDUCT OF ALL DEFENDANTS 45. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all previous paragraphs as if re-stated herein. 46. The death of the late Elizabeth Jasper on March 16, 2013 was directly and proximately caused by the intentional tortious conduct of all Defendants. 47. Defendants were warned of the danger and unjustifiable risk to the health and safety of both the patients and the nursing staff posed by the staffing shortages at the Hospital. 48. Defendants had ample opportunity to address the staffing problem at the Hospital, yet failed repeatedly and consistently to take reasonable steps to mitigate or solve the staffing problem. 49. Defendants knew that their practice of understaffing the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit was in contravention of both Hospital policy and FACT standards. 50. By deliberately and intentionally operating the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit with a numerically inadequate staff, Defendants knowingly placed their employees, including Ms. Jasper, in a position of danger. 51. Rather than hiring and/or training more nurses, Defendants instead attempted to address the staffing problem by simply having the existing number of nurses care for more patients and pressuring the nurses to work more hours and to forfeit their periods of rest throughout the workday. 7

8 52. By overworking the Hospital s nurses, Defendants policy of deliberately understaffing the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit deliberately and intentionally exposed their employees, including Ms. Jasper, to an unjustifiably high risk of exhaustion and injury. 53. Defendants were made aware and were substantially certain that grievous injury would befall their employees, including Ms. Jasper as a result of this policy. 54. Defendants policy of understaffing the Blood Marrow Transplant Unit and overworking its nurses in intentional disregard of the dangers posed to them is the direct and proximate cause of Ms. Jasper s automobile crash, as well as the direct and proximate cause of Ms. Jasper s death. COUNT III - LOSS OF CONSORTIUM AS TO JAMES JASPER AGAINST ALL DEFENDANTS 55. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all previous paragraphs as if re-stated herein. 56. At the time of these events, James Jasper and Elizabeth Jasper were married. 57. As a result of the wrongful and intentional acts and/or admissions of all Defendants, Plaintiff was caused to suffer and continues to suffer in the future, loss of consortium, loss of society, affection, love, assistance, and fellowship, all to the detriment of Mr. Jasper. 58. All aforesaid injuries were directly and proximately caused by Defendant s wrongful and acts and/or omissions. COUNT IV LOSS OF CONSORTIUM AS TO MINOR CHILDREN AGAINST ALL DEFENDANTS 59. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all previous paragraphs as if re-stated herein. 8

9 60. James Jasper is the father of the Minor Children, and Elizabeth Jasper was the mother of the Minor Children. 61. At the time of these events, James and Elizabeth Jasper were married and domiciled together with the Minor Children. 62. As a result of the wrongful and intentional acts and/or admissions of all Defendants, the Plaintiffs were caused to suffer and continue to suffer in the future, loss of consortium, loss of care, advice, guidance, counsel, and instruction, loss of society, affection, love, assistance, and fellowship, all to the detriment of the Minor Children. 63. All aforesaid injuries were directly and proximately caused by Defendant s wrongful and acts and/or omissions. COUNT V PUNITIVE DAMAGES AGAINST ALL DEFENDANTS 64. Mr. Jasper incorporates and re-alleges all previous paragraphs as if re-stated herein. 65. Defendants actions were outrageous, wanton, reckless, reprehensible, egregious, malicious and aggravated, and said actions caused the Jaspers permanent injuries and damages as set forth in this complaint. PRAYER FOR RELEIF WHEREFORE, the Plaintiff respectfully requests judgment in favor of Plaintiff and against all Defendants for 1. Loss of support from the reasonably expected earning capacity of the decedent; 2. Loss of services of the decedent; 9

10 3. Loss of the society of the decedent, including loss of companionship, consortium, care, assistance, attention, protection, advice, guidance, counsel, instruction, training and education 4. Pain and Suffering and Mental Anguish 5. Any and all other relief that the Plaintiff is entitled to as a matter of law. Respectfully Submitted, \s\eric C. Deters Eric C. Deters ( ) Eric C. Deters & Partners, P.S.C. 635 West Seventh Street, Suite 401 Cincinnati, OH Phone (513) Fax (513) Attorney for Plaintiff JURY DEMAND COMES NOW Plaintiffs, by and through undersigned counsel, and demand a trial by jury for all issues. \s\eric C. Deters Eric C. Deters ( ) 10