Sexual exploitation of patients by hospital workers is a foreseeable hazard. In a recent case, the California Court of Appeal for the Second District found that a psychiatric hospital’s policies exponentially increased that danger.
In 2013, an employee at an acute psychiatric hospital in Ventura, CA subjected two women – the plaintiffs in the case of Samantha B. et al. v. Aurora Vista Del Mar, LLC et al. – to sexual abuse while they were residing in the hospital as patients. The plaintiffs, who were both suffering from psychosis, lacked the mental capacity to consent to sex.
The hospital had hired the employee as a mental health worker in 2011. In a form he filled out for the hiring process, he answered “no” to the question of whether he had been arrested for a crime requiring registration as a sex offender. In fact, he had been arrested in 1989 for two sex-related offences, one of which required registration.
The hospital had retained an investigative consumer reporting agency to do a background check on the employee. Since such agencies were prohibited by law from reporting an arrest or conviction preceding the report by over seven years, the agency had not reported the arrest from 11 years ago.
The plaintiffs filed an action against the hospital and its management company. They alleged professional negligence and violations of the Elder Abuse Act.
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