Maine Hospital Threatens Defamation Suit Over Teen’s Change.org Petition

A Maine hospital is threatening to sue a former worker for defamation after her 15-year-old son wrote a petition calling for an investigation into the hospital’s lax affected person security requirements. 

In keeping with a authorized letter lately despatched to the hospital, Anne Yered, a pediatric intensive care doctor, was fired with out trigger from Northern Gentle Well being’s Japanese Maine Medical Middle final June after she raised affected person security issues.

Yered’s son, Samson Cournane, a then 14-year-old scholar on the close by College of Maine, says he determined to analysis affected person security on the hospital after his mom’s firing. In keeping with a press launch from the Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Modification nonprofit concerned within the case, Samson “discovered that information articles and watchdog studies confirmed a troubling sample of issues of safety at his native hospital.”

Quickly after, Cournane determined to put in writing a petition urging Maine congressional Rep. Jared Golden to launch an investigation into the hospital’s practices. He additionally launched a Twitter account to promote the petition. A month later, he additionally wrote an article in his college’s newspaper, the place he mentioned the hospital’s issues of safety and linked to his petition. In keeping with Cournane’s article, the hospital is tormented by understaffing and overcrowding.

“My hope with this petition is to indicate hospital administration that we’re severe about fixing this potential disaster,” Courane wrote. “I hope that hospital executives will be part of with the essential stakeholders and conduct spherical desk discussions about methods to enhance the state of affairs outlined within the petition.”

In January, Yered despatched the hospital a draft criticism after exhausting her makes an attempt to reverse her wrongful termination with out litigation. In keeping with FIRE, “the hospital fired again, threatening to countersue for defamation primarily based on Samson’s written advocacy and baselessly claiming that Dr. Yered ‘ghostwrote’ the petition, tweets, and letter to the editor,” regardless of no proof supporting this declare.

FIRE argues that the hospital’s threatened lawsuit can be an apparent instance of a SLAPP (strategic lawsuits towards public participation) lawsuit, a meritless lawsuit filed to intimidate—or bankrupt—a corporation’s or particular person’s critics into silence.

Nevertheless, Maine has an anti-SLAPP legislation which states that lawsuits over speech that “[fall] inside constitutional safety of the proper to petition authorities” beneath the U.S. Structure or the Structure of Maine that aren’t “devoid of any cheap factual assist” are eligible for a particular movement to dismiss. 

“Even with out Maine’s statutory safety, Samson’s public advocacy can not represent defamation,” FIRE wrote in its letter to the hospital’s attorneys. “As described above, Samson’s statements of reality are supported by private information and documentary proof. His opinions are expressions of non-public judgment, primarily based on his interpretation of info—a well-established class of protected speech.”

“The rationale I selected to talk out was that everybody deserves to have protected and good high quality well being care. And after I came upon about this, I felt like I used to be morally accountable to do one thing about it and lift consciousness with the administration and in the neighborhood,” Courane informed FIRE. “I wrote all these items, and I absolutely consider what I am saying. And I really feel like this simply makes me wish to do extra.”