SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Hundreds of graduates who attended an online nursing college will have to continue to wait to find out if they’ll be able to work in California and may need to repeat semesters of school after a judge ruled against their college Friday.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto denied Nightingale College's request for a preliminary injunction in its ongoing legal battle with the California Board of Registered Nursing.
In his 12-page ruling, which became final late Friday, Acquisto found Nightingale College was unlikely to succeed on its legal claims.
He agreed with the nursing board's interpretation of state law requiring out-of-state nursing graduates to meet the same minimum clinical training requirements as California graduates, an interpretation he said "seems to be the only reasonable one."
At the hearing, Nightingale College argued the California Board of Registered Nursing’s requirement students complete 500 hours of direct patient care training doesn’t apply to the school. An attorney for the college argued the board can’t regulate out-of-state schools.
The board disagreed and argued state law requires all nursing graduates to complete the minimum training before they can apply for licensure in California. On Friday, an attorney for the state said there are hundreds of applicants who are impacted.
He argued there could be “substantial harm” to the public if the grads were allowed to get licensed without having completed the required clinical hours in obstetrics or pediatrics, for example.
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Nightingale College told the court there’s no evidence a graduate from the school, which is registered in Utah, has ever provided anything but the “highest quality of medical care.”
The school believes the board’s actions are unfair and said nearly 2,000 graduates from the online school have previously been licensed in California without issue.
In August, Team 10 reported hundreds of grads from the school might have to go back to school for a semester or longer as the state board worked to determine if Nightingale met California’s licensure requirements.
After our story aired, San Diego resident Rachel Baxter told us she received death threats for speaking to Team 10 about her experience with Nightingale College and sharing her frustration with not being able to get her nursing license.
The board then issued a warning to anyone who was sending death threats to graduates and said it could be cause for denying a license. Nightingale told Team 10 the threats were “unacceptable at every level.”
In his written decision, Acquisto acknowledged the impact on Nightingale graduates who have been unable to obtain nursing licenses and jobs.
“The court finds that the interim harm to the public from the requested preliminary injunction being granted would be substantially greater than the interim harm to the interests represented by Nightingale from the requested preliminary injunction being denied. This factor weighs heavily against issuance of the requested preliminary injunction,” he said.
Nightingale College is suing the board and wanted the court to issue a preliminary injunction so its graduates could apply for their licenses and enter the workforce while the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.
The judge issued his decision Friday shortly after hearing more than an hour of arguments from both sides.
The lawsuit remains ongoing and the next hearing is scheduled for February. 19
