Court Opinion

ID: 9646737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:09:33.565692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:41.371770
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
The hospital contends on rehearing that Dessie Ray Lewis, R.N., was supervising the entire psychiatric unit, and therefore the team leader, Ms. Alexander, could not be a vice-principal. We have again reviewed the record on that point. Neither Lewis nor any other witness testified that the open unit was under her supervision. When asked where she was working on the night of the occurrence in question, Lewis testified that she was in the closed unit that night. She testified that the R.N. on duty always assesses new patients and writes up the admission notes, and that she had done so for Ms. Wagner upon Ms. Wagner’s admission to the hospital. She further testified that after writing up the nurse’s notes and conferring with the team leader, “I returned to my unit, the closed unit_” (Emphasis added.)
When asked how she became involved with the open unit at the shift change, Nurse Lewis replied that she communicated with the R.N. coming on for the open unit, because there was not an R.N. on the open unit, and that “[W]e always communicate with each other between the shift change.” When asked if she had participated at all in Ms. Wagner’s care on the night in question, she testified that she had not.
The record further indicates that there is a separate nurse’s position in both the closed unit and the open unit. Stewart Powers, an employee of the hospital, testified that “[t]he registered nurse will always be in the Closed Unit with an aide_” He further testified that Dessie Lewis was assigned to the closed unit and that the registered nurse on the closed unit “would always get involved in admissions, any problems, and be the person who this person would answer to. If this R.N. were not able to for whatever reason, then she would have needed to call the House Supervisor, who would then take on the responsibility.”
When Nurse Lewis was asked if she made the rounds through the open unit during the night shift, she answered that she did most of the time, and then the question was asked, “But who was the team leader in that open unit that night?” Her answer: “Ms. Alexander.”
We find that there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could conclude that the team leader Alexander had management of the open unit of the psychiatric ward.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.