Mental health worker can’t sue for negligence in attack

A mental health facility worker cannot sue her employer for negligence over a 2014 attack by a patient, an incident that resulted in a workers compensation settlement, an appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled Monday.

The woman was working as a residential counselor at an inpatient psychiatric and mental health service facility operated by Carelink Community Support Services Inc. when a patient “without leave or notice or provocation … did lay violent hands upon the Plaintiff; fondling and groping her before knocking her to the floor and assaulting her in a sexual nature,” according to documents in 2020 PA Super 56, filed in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg.

The woman, who settled her workers compensation claim in 2016 for $40,000 after collecting more than $75,000 in benefits, filed a negligence action against Carelink later that year alleging the company was “liable for the attack because it did not have safety procedures, equipment and a building design sufficient to protect Plaintiff from potentially violent patients,” documents state.

Carelink subsequently filed motions for summary judgment on the basis that the state’s exclusive remedy provision bars such suits following a workers compensation settlement, and a trial court agreed. On appeal, the state’s Superior Court ruled that the tort action against Carelink “is barred as a matter of law” by the state’s comp code.