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Loading ...Fed court dismisses lesbian hospital lawsuit
09.30.2009 9:36am EDT
(Miami, Fl.) The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida today rejected Lambda Legal’s lawsuit filed against Jackson Memorial Hospital on behalf of Janice Langbehn, the Estate of Lisa Pond and their three adopted children who were kept apart by hospital staff for eight hours as Lisa slipped into a coma and died.
“The court’s decision paints a tragically stark picture of how vulnerable same-sex couples and their families really are during times of crisis,” said Beth Littrell, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office based in Atlanta. “We hope that because of Janice’s courage to seek justice for her family in this case that more people better understand the costs of antigay discrimination. This should never happen to anyone.”While on a family cruise leaving from Miami, Lisa Pond, a healthy 39 year-old, suddenly collapsed. She was rushed to Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital with her partner Janice and three children following close behind. There, the hospital refused to accept information from Janice about her partner’s medical history. Janice was informed that she was in an antigay city and state, and she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as Lisa’s partner or family.
A doctor finally spoke with Janice telling her that there was no chance of recovery. Other than one five minute visit that was arranged by a Catholic priest at Janice’s request to perform last rites, and despite the doctor’s acknowledgement that no medical reason existed to prevent visitation, neither Janice – who provided the hospital with a medical Power of Attorney document — nor their children were allowed to see Lisa until nearly eight hours after their arrival.
Soon after Lisa’s death, Janice tried to get her death certificate in order to get life insurance and Social Security benefits for their children. She was denied both by the State of Florida and the Dade County Medical Examiner.
Today’s ruling comes after the Public Health Trust of the Miami Dade County, the governing body of Jackson Memorial Hospital, filed a motion to dismiss the case. The court ruled that the hospital has neither an obligation to allow their patients’ visitors nor any obligation whatsoever to provide their patients’ families, healthcare surrogates, or visitors with access to patients in their trauma unit. The court has given the Langbehn-Pond family until Oct. 16 to review the ruling and consider all legal options.
Beth Littrell, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta is lead counsel on the case for Lambda Legal. She is joined by co-counsel Donald J. Hayden of Baker & McKenzie, LLP.
It seems that the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution is not longer a vailable to us a GLBT people. Why are out contracts and legal directives from one state not valid in another. We need to demand this equal protection for any opposite sex person “claiming” marriage to a patient.
There is nothing that can be done to change the past but the future can be changed for the better. I use to work at BGMC in Broward County years ago. Visiters (family and non-family) were allowed in when the patients were stabilized. Jackson Memorial is still just trying to cover its own ass and bigotry. BGMC has what is called “Patient Representatives” that work in the ER. The ones that I use to work with would have gotten this settled with NO problem on the spot. The Doctors I use to work with would have listened to the family and would have been more understanding.
South Florida is not anti-gay. Just certain people are and they tend to mouth off very easily. I know of alot of GLB people that are Nurses, Drs and other Health Professionals that would be and are shocked at the the way Jackson Memorial has handled this incident.
Hopefully something good can be learned from this and ALL hospitals can become better in their understanding.
My heart still goes out to the family of Lisa Pond. May she rest in peace.
So much for justice in the United States. I’d like to know who appointed the judge that made this decision.
Regarding who the Judge is, his name is Adalberto Jordan and he was nominated by Bill Clinton to the Federal District Court in 1996. He also teaches part time at University of Miami School of Law.
The Judges ruling seemed to be based on the fact there are no laws requiring visitation rights. He didn’t have much choice this time. However he did not dismiss the case with prejudice, which means he left it open for them to refile under a different theory — possibly a tort claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress?
This is a blatant demonstration as to the level of bigotry that Gay Americans experience on a daily basis.The Gay community cannot accept this and we are all obligated to get involved with politicians at the local, state and especially Federal level.
The fight exists today in Maine where the leislated Marriage law is being contested. Our opponents say they want to protect marriage, yet in the State of Washington, where they legislated Domestic partnerships with the benefits of marriage, the law is being contested by a referendum in November. So much for the opposition supposedly neing focused on the sanctity of marriage.
Kudos to lambda Legal for fighting this case and I assure you lambda Legal wont give up.
The blatant bigotry and discrimination against Gay Americans must stop. We have every legal right to the same civil rights as all other citizens and we must be active in opposing these discriminatory actions.
Please do whatever you can to attend the October 11th march in Washington DC. We need to show our faces and outrage at the denial of basic civil rights to Gay Americans.
This very story needs to be used in ad’s for the Maine vote coming up and in Cali and all other states when needed.
While the tragedy of this story is enormous and I feel great empathy for the family I think that this is a “Why we need our rights” story that would hit home in a hard way to anyone sitting on the fence about our rights when they go to the voting booth to vote for or against us.
Personally I think that the hospital should be burned to the ground for treating anyone like that.
A perfect reminder of why GLBT folks and their allies should NEVER travel to or spend their vacation dollars in hate states like Florida that refuse to protect us and our families. There are so many other beautiful places to visit in the US that do support us.
It seems as if justice is being served in America in smaller and smaller portions everyday.
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“The court ruled that the hospital has neither an obligation to allow their patients’ visitors nor any obligation whatsoever to provide their patients’ families, healthcare surrogates, or visitors with access to patients in their trauma unit.”
I agree with cm2k. If there’s no laws requiring visitation rights, this could have happened to anybody’s family, str8 or gay.
Judges like these would make Hitler proud.
This is the reason we need a strong showing in DC. This could happen to anyone. We need to make this a real million folk march.
I know this makes us look mean spirited, but why not be mean when under attack?
Someone told this poor woman that she was in an anti-gay state and city. Who told her that? She should come out and identify this person so he/she can be pubclicy ostracized.
Can you see people picketing the person’s house with the text scrolling across CNN’s screen “angry mob protests house of health care worker who denied access by family and affirmed FL is an anti-gay state”.
Bigots don’t like being bigots in public (see prop 8 case to shield donors from the public). It seems one person in FL thought it could be quasi-public. Time for an outing!
OK….Adopted children were kept from their adoptive parent. Adoption is legal! Those kids were denied their last few moments with their parent. The hospital should pay.
The judge that ruled on this is obviously a moron. YOU DENIED CHILDREN THEIR LAST FEW MOMENTS WITH THEIR PARENT!
Unbelievable!
Note to self: Do not vacation in Florida with partner and kids as I will be denied access and so will my children if something bad happens.
As a British citizen, I want to say that there are many things about the US that I respect…but today, I am angered and sickened, and relieved that this could not happen here. I wish every good, decent person in the US (be they gay, bi or straight) the best of luck in forging ahead to a better future than this tragedy.
Quite blaming the judge; if there is no law — there is no law. Judges don’t get to just make it up as they go along. This is clearly the fault of hospital staff who are devoid of human compassion, and, lacking any legal obligation, have chosen to perpetrate evil on this family. You’d think the hospital would be ashamed and remorseful, but — this is Florida, so such behavior is commonplace and to be expected. Don’t expect any help from the Florid legislature either. There is nothing about the state of Florida I don’t hate (except some of the people.)