PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday unanimously rejected an appeal by the State Board of Nursing that sought to reinstate a two-year license suspension of a nurse who discharged a patient later found dead in the snow outside the hospital.
John S. Zablotny of Steuben was the nursing supervisor on duty at Down East Community Hospital in Machias on Jan. 1, 2008, when patient Reid Emery, 61, of Eastport asked to be discharged against his doctor’s advice.
Zablotny, who said Emery was competent to discharge himself, allowed the patient to leave the hospital on foot in a snowstorm wearing only jeans and a flannel shirt, according to court documents. Emery had reportedly told the nurse he was walking a short distance to a friend’s house.
Emery’s body was found the next morning beneath more than a foot of snow about 380 feet from the main entrance of the hospital, according to court documents.
After the nursing board suspended Zablotny’s license for two years, he appealed and a district court judge reduced it to 90 days.
“This relatively minor [90-day] sanction for what was truly egregious conduct compelled the Board of Nursing to seek review of the district court’s decision in order to protect the public safety,” Timothy Feeley, spokesman for the Maine attorney general’s office, said Tuesday in an email. “Fortunately, the vast majority of nurses in Maine take excellent care of their patients. Mr. Zablotny’s disregard for his patient’s safety in this instance and his continued refusal to acknowledge his errors made him a danger to the public.
“On behalf of the Board of Nursing, the office of the attorney general appealed the district court decision to the law court seeking to hold Mr. Zablotny more accountable for his actions,” Feeley said. “Today’s Law Court decision upheld the lower court’s findings against Mr. Zablotny, but also concluded that the lower court was not compelled to find further violations.”
The justices’ decision let the 90-day suspension stand.
In response to Feeley’s statement, Zablotny’s attorney, Joseph Baldacci of Bangor, called the actions taken by the attorney general’s office in the case, a “misguided prosecution.”
“For six plus years, the AG’s office sought a revocation,” Baldacci said in an email. “For six plus years, the AG’s office argued that Mr. Zablotny was supposed to restrain the patient from leaving. We have had to take this case up to the [Maine] supreme court twice — the first time because the AG’s office refused to accept a person’s right to a … hearing if their license to work in a profession was being revoked.
“In this second appeal, the [state] supreme court affirmed the district court’s judgment that had blown away about 90 percent of the state’s case and now the state, after investing millions in this misguided prosecution, is trying to cover themselves publicly for what they did,” he said.
Baldacci also said that his client has worked as a nurse at Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor since 2008 and maintained high ratings.
The Maine State Nursing Board in June 2010 determined Zablotny had violated his professional duties by not informing Emery that he risked hypothermia and death by leaving the hospital during the snowstorm.
After the board suspended his license, Zablotny appealed. Then in December 2015, District Court Judge David Mitchell ruled that although Zablotny’s actions were “unprofessional and highly disturbing,” the Maine State Nursing Board did not prove that his actions demonstrated incompetence or an inability to practice.
Mitchell overturned the two-year suspension and instead imposed the 90-day suspension of his license. Zablotny already had served 104 days of the two-year suspension, so no additional discipline was required.
The nursing board appealed Mitchell’s decision to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Oct. 27 at the Cumberland County Courthouse.
The board contended that the district court judge should have found that Zablotny committed unprofessional conduct and violated board rules by failing to fully inform the on-call physician about all the conditions under which the patient was seeking to be discharged and failing to notify immediately law enforcement or Emery’s emergency contact about his departure.
Justice Donald Alexander wrote in the court’s 12-page decision that Mitchell’s findings after the hearing in December 2015 supported the conclusion that “the District Court was not compelled, as a matter of law, to find that Zablotny violated board rules or professional standards of care asserted by the board.”