Lawyer Charged for Advising Nurses Who Quit Their Jobs
A New York lawyer who told 10 nurses that they were free to quit their jobs at a nursing home has been charged (PDF) with endangering the welfare of patients there.
Felix Vinluan says he simply told the nurses, who had been recruited from the Philippines, that the facility had breached their contracts by paying substandard wages, changing work assignments and other violations, the New York Law Journal reports. “I advised them they could resign if they wanted to as their contracts were already breached,” he told the legal publication. He believes the operator of the facility, SentosaCare, is using its political influence to encourage the prosecution, which could intimidate other nurses who might be considering quitting.
Ten of the nurses who quit with little notice have been charged along with Vinluan with conspiracy and endangerment of five children, including four on ventilators, and one terminally ill man, the North Country Gazette reports.
But the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Leonard Lato of Suffolk County, maintains Vinluan is being targeted because he went further than just providing legal advice and encouraged the nurses to leave. He says the nurses’ abrupt resignations didn’t give the center enough time to find replacements.
“If all Mr. Vinluan did was advise, rather than ‘encourage,’ he wouldn’t have been charged,” Lato told the publication.
