In California, patients, plus the general public, value nurses. A nursing career in California can be gratifying and have considerable financial rewards. However, if you are subject to disciplinary action by the California BRN (Board of Registered Nursing), you may lose all those rewards. Professional license disciplinary procedures jeopardize careers if they lead to license revocation or suspension.

Should you face nursing license disciplinary action in California, you might be incapable of practicing nursing anywhere in the United States. Put otherwise; license discipline may end your nursing career. However, do not despair over the BRN disciplinary process. Whatever you do, only hire qualified legal representation, which may inhibit a successful license defense.

You should retain the services of the leading license defense lawyers from the San Francisco License Attorney. Let us defend against the accusations against your nursing license. Call us for the experience and skills you require for your most favorable disciplinary outcome.

The BRN’s Mandatory Licensing Role

Sections 2796 and 2795 of the California BPC (Business and Professions Code) make it illegal for anybody in the state to practice a nursing career or utilize nursing titles such as nurse anesthetist, registered nurse, or RN without a state-issued valid nursing license. State laws make licensing for nurses mandatory. The BRN is the body that licenses nurses in California. Hence, it fines, cites, and publicizes the names of people who practice nursing with no license.

Should you face a license disciplinary action, you cannot overlook that process, expecting you to continue practicing with your present employer. Contrarily, you must fight to keep your license if you do not want to be forced to surrender your nursing career.

The BRN’s Disciplinary Authority

The California Nursing Practice Act (NPA), codified under BPC Chapter 6, creates the BRN. Chapter 6 Article 3 authorizes the BRN to impose discipline against licensed nurses. According to BPC Section 2570, every licensee or certificate holder may face discipline as provided under Article 3.

On the other hand, BPC Section 2759 provides that the BRN shall impose discipline against any licensee against whom a default decision was reached or who underwent the BRN disciplinary process and was found liable per the BRN’s disciplinary procedures. BPC Section 2761 lists the grounds for the BRN to discipline a licensee up to revocation. The BRN has more authority to subject your license to discipline on accusations of professional misconduct.

The BRN’s Disciplinary Actions

The BRN takes its duty to discipline licensed nurses seriously. It publishes the license numbers and names of RNs whose licenses face disciplinary action monthly. The board devotes considerable resources to disciplining licensees and retaining career disciplinary experts to detect, probe, and punish nursing standards violations.

Respect the BRN’s duty to protect the general public against unlicensed and unqualified nursing practice, and most especially, respect its disciplinary intent and resources more. You might not have done anything wrong at all, or you might not deserve to face any disciplinary action due to mitigating and extenuating circumstances. However, the BRN is equipped and ready to impose discipline.

Increased BRN Scrutiny

You should anticipate scrutiny as a California nurse. BRN officials take their mandate to safeguard the public seriously. For example, in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Operation Nightingale Enforcement Action, which identified more than 7,600 registered nurses who supposedly used fake license credentials to obtain licenses, the BRN cooperated in the investigations, just like it continues to scrutinize nurses’ credentials.

You work in a significantly regulated field, one of the most highly regulated among all other fields. Like nursing boards from different states, the BRN monitors agency, employer, and investigator reports on suspicious nursing credentials and qualifications. Do not be involved in the BRN’s disciplinary enforcement.

Allegations That Can Subject Your License to Disciplinary Action

Professionals face prevalent license disciplinary matters. Nurses, too, face those prevalent professional issues. However, nurses especially need license defense due to their work environment.

Patients already face impending demise, disability, and diseases. Their vulnerability and the fact that their lives are at stake make this profession particularly hazardous for disciplinary proceedings. BPC 2761 lists the general and specific grounds upon which the BRN may impose discipline against a licensee, and they include the following:

  • Professional misconduct

  • Gross negligence or incompetence in performing usual licensed or certified nursing functions

  • Deceptive, false, or misleading nursing-related advertising

  • Practicing nursing without a valid license

  • License restriction, suspension, revocation, denial, or other disciplinary actions against your license by a different professional licensing board

  • Obtaining your license or certificate by misrepresentation, mistake, or fraud

  • Violating or trying to violate, conspiring to violate, or abetting or assisting in the violation of any nursing regulations or standards

  • Offering to or agreeing to procure an illegal abortion or trying to assist in, aiding, or abetting the procurement of an illegal abortion

  • Giving or making any false information or statement in your nursing license application

  • A felony conviction

  • A conviction for a crime substantially connected to the duties, functions, and qualifications of an RN

  • Impersonating an applicant or posing as a proxy for the applicant in a nursing exam needed for the qualification of a nursing license

  • Impersonating another licensed or certified practitioner

  • Holding yourself out as a registered nurse or meeting board-established standards for a registered nurse while failing to meet those standards

  • Allowing someone else to use your license or certificate to perform nursing duties

  • Consciously failing to protect a patient by neglecting to follow the board's disease control guidelines, thus risking transmitting blood-borne infections from you to the patient, from the patient to another, and from the patient to you

  • Holding yourself out to the general public as being board-certified as a nurse midwife, nurse anesthetist, public health nurse, or clinical nurse specialist when not certified

Some of the above grounds, such as professional misconduct, are exceptionally subjective and broad, increasing the disciplinary risk. Call a lawyer if you are subject to any of the above BRN misconduct charges.

The BRN Disciplinary Process

BPC Chapter 6 Article 3 authorizes the BRN’s disciplinary proceedings for nurses in California. BPC Section 2759 mainly gives the board the mandate to suspend by default the license of a registered nurse who does not respond to the accusations against them on time and to impose an appropriate type of discipline. The exact section also authorizes disciplinary actions against a license up to revocation for a nurse found responsible for professional misconduct per the following disciplinary process. Hire a highly experienced license defense attorney to strategically fight for you every step of the disciplinary process for your favorable outcome.

Complaint Filing

Per the disciplinary mandate of BPC Chapter 6 Article 3, particularly Code Section 2761, the BRN publishes its complaint process. The process invites anybody who believes an RN has acted unsafely or unprofessionally or an unlicensed individual is unlawfully practicing nursing to bring a complaint.

Complaints usually originate from patients, patients' family members, supervisors, subordinates, or colleagues. The board might also obtain information from prosecutions in criminal courts, media reports, civil court cases, etc., that warrants filing a complaint.

The board then conducts an initial review of the complaints to determine their possible merit. If there is merit, it will assign an investigator for further investigations. The board keeps complaints private until an accusation is filed.

Board Investigations

Not every complaint requires investigation. For example, a conviction for a felony crime justifies a disciplinary process without investigation. However, in many cases of possible merit, the board sends the case to its investigation division for an investigator to carry out interviews, collect documentary evidence, and compile a report of the investigation findings. In ordinary cases, the investigator will call you for information.

Once you learn you are being investigated for professional misconduct, promptly hire a qualified defense attorney to assist you in responding favorably, accurately, timely, and entirely to the investigator. Hiring a lawyer at this point may lead to favorable results and the dismissal of your case. Also, deal with the disciplinary charges in advance instead of avoiding them.

According to Section 2765, a license expiring does not prevent a probe. Contrarily, the BRN might continue investigating and impose disciplinary action that prevents you from renewing the expired license.

Consent Agreements

The BRN has the power to strike a consent agreement with you. A consent agreement may be an attractive alternative to avoid disciplinary hearings and actions. However, note the agreement’s terms or conditions, particularly if you might be incapable of complying. Inability or failure to comply might lead to automatic license revocation or suspension.

Consult an attorney before agreeing to a consent agreement. The lawyer might successfully advocate for your favorable consent terms or conditions. BPC Section 2751 allows license surrender as a consent agreement. However, the conditions or terms of a license surrender might bar you from reacquiring your professional license or being licensed in a different state, particularly if you have pending disciplinary proceedings against you or a history of discipline. Let a qualified attorney advise you.

Disciplining Minor Violations

The board might refer minor accusations to its fine and citation system instead of escalating the case to an official disciplinary proceeding. You might challenge a citation or fine through the formal or informal appeal process. Note that minor violations could impact your career and employment, whether or not they lead to license discipline. Hire a lawyer to help you navigate the official appeal procedure. The BRN might refer cases that involve supposed drug abuse to its Recovery and Alternative to Discipline Intervention Program.

Formal Administrative Hearing

If your case is severe, the BRN will forward it to the attorney general's office for formal proceedings before an ALJ (administrative law judge). To initiate the formal proceedings, the attorney general will file either an Accusation (if you are a licensee) or a Statement of Issues (if you are a license applicant). Once the board serves you with any of these documents, you need to respond immediately by filing a Request for Discovery and Notice of Defense with the board. Failure to respond in 15 days will lead to the board revoking your license by default.

Once you respond, your case will be set for a formal hearing at one of the state's four Offices of Administrative Hearings (OAHs) located in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, and Oakland. During the hearing, the ALJ records the proceedings. These administrative proceedings involve document exhibits, witness testimony, and subpoena power. The deputy attorney general represents the board, while you should have an attorney to represent you. At this point, your lawyer can help you:

  • Present your eyewitnesses and mitigating factors, and cross-examine witnesses on the board’s side.

  • Appear at the post-hearing and pre-hearing conferences and advocate for you.

  • Research, create, and file a hearing brief.

  • Negotiate with the board to modify, reject, or accept the ALJ’s decision.

After the hearing, the ALJ delivers a written decision, which the BRN might reject or adopt. The ALJ’s decision might include denial of a professional nursing license, revocation, or suspension. If you disagree with the BRN's rejection or adoption of the judge's hearing decision, your only option would be filing an administrative writ of mandate (writ of mandamus) in a superior court. Writs of mandamus are intricate legal instruments, and an attorney should help you with the whole process.

Find an Experienced License Defense Lawyer Near Me

License disciplinary proceedings are not conclusive. The BRN may take complaints at face value when those complaints could involve substantial speculation, guesses, and conjecture. Generally, patients or people who file complaints against nurses do not have the nursing training and education to understand what constitutes professional misconduct.

Also, subordinates, supervisors, and colleagues may make mistaken inferences and observations regarding a nurse's administration of drugs, record keeping, and sobriety state, subjecting them to unfair, exaggerated, or false accusations.

However, even if accusations against you are entirely true or significantly credible, they might not warrant disciplinary action due to your mitigating circumstances. The board anticipates your response and explanation. Its accusations against you do not mean discipline. Instead, you must hire a highly experienced license defense lawyer to prove your innocence.

At San Francisco License Attorney, we are more than ready to help you keep your license if you face an accusation of unprofessional conduct. Call us at 415-919-6594 for a case evaluation and premier legal representation.