When a surgeon went around telling other members of the surgical team at a Texas hospital that one of the OR circulating nurses was incompetent and "not a good nurse," his statements may have been false, but they did not constitute defamation, a jury found earlier this year.

According to her defamation suit against John Pate Jr., DDS, MD, FACS, circulating nurse Nora Crowley, RN, became the target of the facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon's derogatory statements in February 2006, when they both were working at El Paso Specialty Hospital. She claimed that Dr. Pate called her incompetent in front of other OR personnel and told an anesthesiologist she was not a good nurse after she refused to use a piece of laser equipment that her supervisor had said was defective.

A month later, Ms. Crowley was removed from Dr. Pate's cases, which she'd previously been assigned to 2 to 3 times a week, according to a report from West's Jury Verdicts. But in April 2006, she had another run-in with the doctor while helping a coworker set up a room for him. After that incident, Ms. Crowley filed a written grievance with the hospital's compliance officer, while Dr. Pate wrote a letter to the facility's senior vice president claiming that she was putting patients at risk and that her behavior was "belligerent, insolent, disruptive, erratic and unpredictable."

Ms. Crowley, who was investigated by the state Board of Nursing after Dr. Pate's complaints and was terminated from her job in November 2006, sued the surgeon for defamation, arguing that his claims against her were false, damaged her reputation and caused her mental anguish. She argued that she was entitled to exemplary damages because Dr. Pate's statements were malicious, willful and intentional.

Dr. Pate denied Ms. Crowley's allegations, arguing that the statements he made were privileged and true, based on questionable behaviors he had witnessed, such as Ms. Crowley kicking open a door and refusing to use the laser in the February 2006 case.

An El Paso County jury agreed with Ms. Crowley's claims that Dr. Pate made the statement, "She's not a good nurse," and that the statement was false. However, the jury determined that the statement was privileged and that other statements Dr. Pate made in his letter to hospital leadership were not defamatory. The jury awarded no damages to Ms. Crowley in a May 2010 judgment. Attorneys for both parties did not return calls for comment.

Irene Tsikitas

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