Suffering nursing license discipline can be catastrophic to a rewarding nursing career. You will lose your nursing employment if your state nursing board suspends or revokes your license. You could also lose your employment, reputation, and professional relationships after lesser discipline, even as little as a license reprimand and probation. That’s why an appeal of discipline is so important. That’s also why missing your appeal deadline can be a serious procedural obstacle. If you need to appeal your license discipline but have already missed your appeal deadline, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team. Let us help you evaluate and pursue your best option for your best possible disciplinary outcome. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for the skilled and experienced appellate representation you need. Read the discussion below about the options we may be able to pursue for you.
State Nursing Board Disciplinary Authority
Whatever the stage of disciplinary proceeding in which you find yourself, you shouldn’t be questioning your state nursing board’s authority to discipline you. State nursing practice acts routinely grant state nursing boards the authority to both issue licenses and discipline those licenses. See, for example, the Florida Nurse Practice Act authorizing the Florida Board of Nursing to license and discipline licenses. See, for another example, the Arkansas Nurse Practice Act, which likewise authorizes the Arkansas Board of Nursing to issue and discipline licenses. Your state nursing practice act will have a similar provision. Don’t fight the board’s authority. Instead, retain us to fight the board’s disciplinary charges.
Rights to Contest State Nursing Board Charges
You indeed have a right to constitutional due process to dispute state nursing board disciplinary charges threatening suspension or revocation of your license. You have a protected property and liberty interest in your nursing practice. State nursing practice acts comply with due process mandates by offering accused nurses notice of the charges and an opportunity for a hearing. See, for example, the Virginia Board of Nursing’s disciplinary procedures providing for notice of charges, formal hearing, and appeal of an adverse decision. Your state nursing practice act will have similar protective procedures. Our attorneys know how to invoke those procedures to present your defense evidence and advocate and negotiate for dismissal of disciplinary charges. We are also available to advocate your best appeal grounds if you have already lost your formal hearing and suffered discipline.
Rights to Appeal State Nursing Board Discipline
As just indicated, state nursing practice acts generally offer an appeal to accused nurses who suffer license discipline. An appeal is a common protective right. See, for example, the Virginia Board of Nursing provisions for appealing an adverse decision after a formal hearing. See, for another example, the Nevada Board of Nursing’s disciplinary process concluding with a right to appeal. Your state nursing practice act or state nursing board administrative rules will likely also offer an appeal. Let us confirm your right to appeal under your state’s act and rules.
State Nursing Board Discipline Appeal Routes
Appeal routes and bodies vary from state to state. The appeal route depends on which official or panel made the initial disciplinary decision that you need to appeal. Some initial disciplinary hearings take place before the full state nursing board, while other initial hearings take place before an official or panel the board designates, an administrative law judge, or another administrative hearing department panel or official. Thus, an appeal may go from an official or panel to the full state nursing board, or from the state nursing board to a higher official or panel. Many states authorize an appeal straight to a state civil trial or appellate court, under the state’s administrative procedure act. See, for example, the Virginia Board of Nursing’s appeal process already mentioned above, which provides for an appeal from the Board of Nursing to the state’s circuit courts. Our attorneys can help you confirm the correct appeal route so that your appeal meets the appeal deadline or gains any other available relief under the appellate body’s rules.
State Nursing Board Discipline Appeal Deadlines
Appeals of state nursing board disciplinary decisions generally have deadlines. A deadline means that you must file the right claim or notice of appeal with the right office in the right form and within the due date, or you may lose your right to appeal. Many states construe the appeal deadline as “jurisdictional,” meaning that if you miss the deadline with a late filing, the appeal body ordinarily has no power to hear the appeal. If you lose your disciplinary hearing and suffer discipline that you need to appeal, retain us immediately so that we can comply with the appeal deadline.
Appeal deadlines vary from state to state but tend to be relatively short. Washington State, for instance, requires the nurse suffering discipline to appeal to the state’s civil courts within thirty days of the agency’s order imposing discipline, in the usual case. Florida also follows a thirty-day deadline for an appeal from a Florida Board of Nursing decision imposing discipline, again in the usual case. By contrast, California, Tennessee, and Oregon all have a sixty-day deadline in the usual case. The Virginia Department of Health Professions publishes a thirty-three-day appeal period for appeals from a Virginia Board of Nursing decision, for a different example. The appeal period is thirty days but adds three days for mailed notices. But these periods are only in the usual case and may have exceptions or vary depending on other circumstances. Let us help you determine the appeal route, appeal deadline, and file your appeal in a timely manner and in the right place.
Causes for Missing Appeal Deadlines
The causes for missing an appeal deadline may matter to whether you can gain relief from the deadline’s effects. Nurses suffering license discipline can be quite upset. They may react emotionally to the news of a license suspension or revocation, without thinking clearly of the opportunity and need for an appeal, even though the notice of the decision often states the appeal route, rights, and deadline. A nurse may, alternatively, not receive timely notice of the adverse decision, so that the nurse does not even know of the license loss. The notice may have gone to the wrong address or just been lost in the mail.
Unrepresented nurses or nurses represented by unqualified counsel may also mistakenly file their appeal with the wrong agency or court. An unrepresented nurse may also intend to file timely and in the correct agency or court but suffer serious illness, accidental injury, or other extraordinary loss, such as a death in the family or serious illness of a dependent. Life goes on. Life can give good cause for treating even something so serious as a lost nursing license as a lower priority than one of these other events. Let us help you discern and articulate the good cause you may have for having missed your appeal deadline. Good cause may make a difference in your opportunity to appeal.
Potential Relief from Appeal Deadlines
Your state nursing board or state administrative procedure act may have a rule or practice of permitting a late-filed appeal, depending on the circumstances. Some states permitting late-filed appeals from agency decisions require that the appealing party show good cause for the failure to file the appeal timely. Other states require at least some explanation, if not a showing of good cause, for the delay beyond the deadline. Michigan, for example, has an appellate court rule MCR 7.119(D) permitting a late appeal within six months of the agency decision if submitted with a “statement of facts explaining the delay.” Your state nursing board may have a similar rule, or your state administrative procedure act or nursing practice act may have a similar statute.
That’s why your grounds for missing the appeal deadline may be important. Let us help you determine what rights you have to pursue a late appeal and the grounds that you may be able to show for doing so. Our attorneys can prepare the appropriate statement along with advocacy and documentation to make your best case for a late-filed appeal. Don’t give up without letting us exhaust all avenues for relief until we have obtained your best possible disciplinary outcome. Your nursing license is worth the extra effort.
Motion for Reconsideration Alternative to Appeal
You may have another alternative, beyond a late-filed appeal. Many state nursing practice acts and state nursing board rules authorize a nurse aggrieved by a disciplinary decision imposing license suspension or revocation to request reconsideration of the decision. A reconsideration request asks the state nursing board or other official or panel making the initial decision to reverse the decision because of its patent errors. A petition for reconsideration doesn’t just argue the case all over again. Instead, it points to errors of law, fact, or procedure in the decision that, if corrected, would change the decision. A petition for reconsideration is the proverbial second bite at the apple, giving you a chance at a better decision from the same body.
A petition for reconsideration has another potential advantage, though. It can restart the clock on your appeal period. Getting an official or panel to change their mind isn’t easy. You’d generally prefer an appeal before a new official or panel who might see your disciplinary case and defense quite differently. Yet when you request reconsideration and the decision maker refuses to change the decision, you would ordinarily have an appeal right from that later decision. The reconsideration decision becomes the agency’s final decision for appeal purposes. Let us help determine whether you still have time for a request for reconsideration to get a second chance at a better decision and, moreover, to restart your appeal period so that we can help you file a timely appeal.
License Reinstatement as an Alternative to Appeal
State nursing practice acts generally grant a nurse whose license the state nursing board has suspended or revoked the right to seek the license’s reinstatement. See, for example, the Alabama Board of Nursing’s guidance for applying for reinstatement of a revoked or suspended license. Your state nursing practice act may have a similar provision, or your state nursing board may have adopted an administrative rule offering license reinstatement. If you cannot file an appeal of your license’s suspension or revocation because you missed the appeal deadline, and the appellate body has no authority or willingness to grant you relief, then seeking your license’s reinstatement may be your best route for getting your license back and resuming nursing practice.
License reinstatement can depend on the terms and conditions of your license suspension or revocation. Discipline orders often include the period that the disciplined nurse must wait before seeking license reinstatement. But those periods can be short, such as one month, three months, or six months, and can pass quickly. You may also have to complete remedial measures such as additional education, training, or counseling. When the time comes for license reinstatement, let us help you make the appropriate showing. Do not simply write a letter asking for reinstatement. Instead, let us summarize your rehabilitative actions, provide documentation that you completed all terms of discipline, and provide proof of your good character, fitness, and competence. Don’t miss your best opportunity to get back into rewarding nursing practice.
Premier Nursing License Defense Available
If you suffer state nursing board discipline and need to appeal, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team for the appellate representation you need for your best appeal outcome. Let us help, even if you have missed your appeal deadline. Our highly qualified attorneys help hundreds of nurses and other healthcare professionals with disciplinary appeals and other defenses against disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for the skilled appellate representation you need.