A licensed nurse facing a state nursing board disciplinary hearing has a lot at stake. Discipline could mean that the nurse loses the license to suspension or revocation. Job loss, loss of reputation, and career may follow. In short, the nurse may have every professional interest riding on the hearing’s outcome. You surely need protective hearing rights. And as the discussion below explains, your state nursing practice act and administrative procedure act must provide those protective rights. You must, though, effectively invoke those rights, or they’ll make no difference in your disciplinary outcome. Your best move to strategically and successfully invoke your state nursing board hearing rights is to retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for the skilled and experienced representation you need for your best possible hearing outcome.
Due Process in a State Nursing Board Hearing
You have a constitutionally protected property and liberty interest in your nursing license. Your state nursing board cannot simply revoke or suspend your license without respecting your constitutional right to due process. The Fourteenth Amendment promises you due process of law against any state action depriving you of a substantial property or liberty interest. Your nursing license is a substantial property and liberty interest. No matter what your state law may provide as to the form of hearing the state nursing board must offer you, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees you due process rights. Retain our attorneys to invoke and enforce your due process rights, for your best disciplinary outcome.
The Rights that Due Process Affords
Due process first guarantees you the right to fair notice of the charges that you will face at your state nursing board disciplinary hearing. Due process rights also guarantee you a fair hearing before the state nursing board, at which you get to tell your side of the matter. And due process also generally requires that your state nursing board conduct the hearing before an impartial decision maker or panel of decision makers. Those three rights, (1) fair notice, (2) fair hearing, and (3) impartial decision maker, constitute the typical due process rights at administrative agency hearings like a state nursing board hearing. The following three subsections further explain those three rights and why, when you retain us to invoke them, they can be so important to your disciplinary outcome.
Right to Fair Notice of Disciplinary Charges
Fair notice means that the state nursing board must generally inform you of the nature of the disciplinary charge and the facts that allegedly support the charge. The notice should generally be in writing and reach you sufficiently in advance of the hearing for you to prepare a defense to the charges. That is the salutary purpose of notice. When you retain us upon receiving notice of the disciplinary charges, we can help you identify, gather, analyze, and organize the evidence that will defend against the charges. We may, for instance, locate and interview witnesses to confirm their testimony for the hearing. We may also obtain documentary evidence to exonerate you or mitigate any penalty. Fair notice of the disciplinary charges can be critical to your ability to defend yourself at your state nursing board hearing. Retain us to ensure you know what your state nursing board alleges you did wrong.
Right to a Fair Hearing
A fair hearing generally means one at which you have a reasonable opportunity to give your account of what happened, answering and defending your state nursing board charges. A fair hearing generally requires that the nursing board official conducting the hearing allow you to call your defense witnesses. We can help you ensure that your witnesses attend, prepared to testify on our direct examination. If, for instance, key witnesses refuse to cooperate, we may be able to obtain subpoenas to compel their attendance. A fair hearing also generally requires that the hearing official allow us to question, cross-examine, and otherwise challenge witnesses who testify against you. A fair hearing would also generally require that the witnesses testify under oath, subject to perjury charges for lying, and that you get to present documentary evidence. Let us help you ensure that your hearing enables you to both tell your side of the matter and challenge any adverse evidence.
Right to an Impartial Decision Maker
An impartial decision maker generally means one who has no bias against you or in favor of the state nursing board and has no conflict of interest. If, for instance, the state nursing board investigator who accused you of the alleged wrong and gathered all the evidence against you also serves as the decision maker at the hearing, then the board may have failed to provide you with an impartial decision maker. Generally, the prosecuting official cannot also serve as the hearing official. A fair judge cannot be both your accuser and your jury. For another example, if the hearing official admits at the hearing that the official doesn’t like you or people belonging to a protected group with which the official associates you, then the official has exhibited bias and is not impartial. The official should also not have more riding on you losing your hearing than winning your hearing, such as getting paid more for finding misconduct. Our attorneys can help you ensure that you have an impartial decision maker.
Enforcing Nursing Board Hearing Due Process Rights
Due process rights, though, are not self-executing. Your state nursing board may not provide you with due process unless you retain us to demand due process. If, for instance, the notice you receive from the state nursing board says little or nothing about what you allegedly did wrong, leaving you guessing as to what evidence to bring to your hearing, we can move for a specification of the charges. If the nursing board officials refuse to tell us what they’re accusing you of having done or not done, we can use that refusal to challenge and reverse any adverse decision for violation of your due process rights. Your state nursing board may also not schedule a hearing, instead pressuring you to relinquish your license under a consent agreement. In that case, we can formally invoke your hearing right, citing the relevant rules and statutes. Likewise, if your hearing decision maker has a conflict of interest or exhibits bias, we can move to remove the decision maker from the hearing in favor of an impartial decision maker. If the board refuses to remove the biased or conflicted official, we can use that refusal to challenge and reverse your discipline.
Enforcement Procedures for Due Process Rights
The prior paragraph gives three examples of the procedures that our attorneys can invoke to enforce your due process rights at your state nursing board hearing. We can move for a specification of your disciplinary charges, demand a hearing time and date, and move to remove a hearing official who exhibits bias or has a conflict of interest. These actions generally involve persistent oral and written communications alerting state nursing board officials that you are relying on your rights. Otherwise, nursing board officials may ignore your due process rights, attempting to induce you into an unfavorable consent agreement. If nursing board officials refuse your due process rights after we demand them on your behalf, and the board disciplines your license, we can use the board’s violation of your due process rights as grounds to reverse the discipline on appeal to a higher administrative authority or in a civil court.
Authority Governing State Nursing Board Hearings
Your state nursing board is not free to do whatever it wishes with respect to your discipline. As an administrative agency in the state executive branch, your state nursing board is a creation of the legislature in your state. In many states, one or both of the following two legislative acts govern hearings of a state nursing board. The following discussion shows how we can invoke those acts on your behalf.
State Nursing Practice Acts Governing Board Hearings
State nursing practice acts create state nursing boards. See, for example, the Florida Nurse Practice Act, creating the Florida Board of Nursing, giving it rulemaking authority, and giving it the duty to regulate nursing, including the power to discipline licenses it issues. States’ legislatures enacting nurse practice acts know that the acts must provide due process, including fair notice and a fair hearing. The Florida Board of Nursing thus acknowledges in its public materials for nurses that, under the Florida Nurse Practice Act, it must provide you with an opportunity for a fair hearing. Your state nurse practice act will likely also expressly afford you due process rights for any disciplinary hearing. Our attorneys know the laws, rules, and regulations to cite to the nursing board to ensure that it affords you fair notice and hearing.
State Administrative Procedure Acts Governing Board Hearings
The other law that may carry your due process rights into effect in your state nursing board hearing is your state’s administrative procedures act. State administrative procedure acts govern administrative agencies. Many states adopt a uniform State Administrative Procedure Act. Both the Uniform Act and individual state acts promise due process in contested cases before administrative agencies. A contested case is one in which the individual whom the agency is regulating disagrees with the agency’s charge. Your state’s administrative procedure act may provide what notice the state nursing board must give you of your disciplinary charge, how much in advance of the hearing the board must serve the notice, who will conduct the hearing, and the protective procedures of the hearing itself, including swearing and cross-examination of witnesses. We know how to invoke your state administrative procedure act rights for their best effect and your best disciplinary outcome.
Appeal as Another State Nursing Board Hearing Right
Your rights don’t end after you lose a hearing, either. Your state nurse practice act or state administrative procedure act will likely also provide for an appeal of an adverse hearing decision. An appeal can be your most important hearing, right when the hearing official or panel isn’t considering your case with an open and impartial mind. No matter how thorough your hearing presentation and how convincing the evidence, some hearing decision makers just won’t make a fair decision in a specific case. If you have already lost your hearing, retain us to pursue your appeal and obtain a reversal. Our attorneys have the skill and experience for effective appeals after a violation of your due process hearing rights.
Qualifications of Nursing Board Hearing Attorneys
It should be clear to you by now that conducting an effective defense of a state nursing board disciplinary proceeding takes experience and skill. Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel or an unqualified local civil litigator. Court rules and procedures differ from administrative hearing rules and procedures. Administrative hearings, while having some trial-like procedures, may relax the rules of evidence, permit or encourage informal procedures such as witness narratives, and even allow hearsay and other inadmissible evidence. Our attorneys not only know the administrative rules and procedures but also have the national reputation and relationships to gain the trust, confidence, and respect of state nursing board officials. We know how to communicate, advocate, and negotiate with state nursing board officials for your best disciplinary outcome, while enforcing your hearing rights.
Premier Nursing Board Hearing Defense Available
If you face a disciplinary hearing before your state nursing board, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team for the skilled and experienced representation you need. Our attorneys have successfully represented hundreds of nurses and other professionals in hearings before their state licensing boards. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain our highly qualified attorneys for your state nursing board hearing.