What Constitutes a “Lawful” Personnel Action?
Applicant, a psychiatric nurse, filed a psyche claim after repeatedly being told by a supervisor (a psychiatric technician) to administer a drug at a more frequent rate than that prescribed by the treating physician. The disagreement had to do with the meaning of “24 hour period.” The technician incorrectly believed that a 24-hour period ran from midnight to midnight, rather than an actual 24 hour cycle beginning with the first administration of a drug.
The Workers’ Compensation Judge interpreted applicant’s claim as hurt feelings based on resentment at being under the supervision of a technician, and found applicant had suffered no actual injury. Applicant filed a petition for reconsideration.
The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board denied applicant’s petition, adopting the WCJ’s opinion and concluding that defendant’s conduct was a lawful, good-faith personnel action and regarded applicant’s claim as a means of confronting the defendant hospital over the issue of its chain of command.
The Court of Appeals took a different approach to this matter. In its opinion, the Court annulled the decision of the WCAB and remanded the case to determine if the action of defendant, through its supervising technician, was, indeed, lawful.
Labor Code § 3208.3 governs psyche claims, and subsection (h) provides a defense against those psychiatric injuries substantially caused by “a lawful, nondiscriminatory, good faith personnel action.”
At least in this case, the good faith personnel action defense to a psyche claim turns on the meaning of the word “lawful.” The psyche technician’s interpretation of “24 hours” seems at odds with the definition used in the practice of medicine, and likely the common sense meaning of the term (imagine a patient, in following the prescription of 1 pill every 24 hours, taking one pill ten minutes before midnight and another twenty minutes later.).
That being said, does such a mistake and deviation from generally accepted practice somehow make the supervisor’s actions anything other than lawful? At most, this seems like an act of negligence.
Hopefully, lawful and correct will remain two distinct terms and the good-faith personnel defense will be one less chip worse for the wear. Let’s all keep our eyes open for how this case turns out.