June 25, 2012

Employee charged with being disrespectful to another


Employee charged with being disrespectful to another
Health & Hospitals Corp. (Metropolitan Hospital Center) v. McCaskey, OATH Index No. 2195/08

ALJ Faye Lewis recommended dismissal of a charge that a special officer was disrespectful to a doctor in a psychiatric emergency room when he remarked "You're trying to kill me today". The statement, made when the doctor brought three patients to the emergency room at one time, was essentially a complaint that the emergency room was overcrowded and understaffed.

Although the officer's "choice of language was not ideal," in the absence of any showing that the brief exchange disrupted hospital operations, misconduct was not established.