FORT MYERS – The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently denied a request for Cape Coral Hospital internal employee records by a former patient who claims she was sexually assaulted by a hospital employee.
In May, attorneys for Donia Goines petitioned the court to require the hospital to release additional records related to the investigation and subsequent firing of nurse Jeovanni Hechavarria. Goines claims that in July 2016, as a patient at the hospital, she was sexually assaulted by Hechavarria.
In the Aug. 13 decision on the request, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carol Mirando denied the request by Goines attorneys for 10 additional interrogatories saying there was ample time during discovery to obtain the files.
Attorneys for Goines had hoped to gather additional testimony regarding at least one additional claim and any other claims from 2013 to 2016. According to court documents, Gaines claimed another patient had "filed a police report and informed Lee Memorial staff and management in March 2015 that she had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Hechavarria." Lee Memorial Health System owns Cape Coral Hospital.
The suit claims that in that case, which allegedly occurred more than a year before Goines assault, "Lee Memorial did not take effective action or implement appropriate policies and procedures as Mr. Hechavarria’s employer to oversee or restrain his conduct; namely, Lee Memorial did not properly investigate him, discipline him, terminate him, require additional training or supervision of him, or limit his access to female patients’ hospital rooms."
Mirando also granted, in part, a protective order requested by Lee Memorial. Goines had requested that the hospital search records of any terminated employees within a four year period, but Mirado sided with Lee Memorial who argued that such an undertaking would require “dozens and dozens of hours of employee time, thus imposing a significant time burden and expense in the cost of employee time.”
Mirando also granted a protective order to preclude Goines' attorneys from taking a deposition from Lee Memorial's general counsel. Mirando found that testimony from the hospital's attorney, who had no knowledge of the case, would, "threaten her attorney-client relationship with Lee Memorial."