A federal jury in Colorado awarded a fired nurse $20 million this week after determining that HCA HealthOne Aurora fired her because she had complained about racial discrimination.
DonQuenick Joppy, who is Black, alleged the hospital, then known as Medical Center of Aurora, wrongfully blamed her for a patient's death from natural causes in 2019 as an excuse to fire her after she complained about mistreatment from white coworkers.
The patient, a 94-year-old man who was experiencing organ failure because of an infection, died after his family agreed to turn off his ventilator. Joppy, who had stayed past the end of her shift in the intensive care unit, followed directions from a respiratory therapist to switch off the ventilator, according to her 2022 lawsuit.
The Colorado Attorney General's Office filed manslaughter charges against Joppy in November 2020, then dropped the case in September 2021 "in the interest of justice."
The hospital pushed for her prosecution and sent incorrect information to the state Board of Nursing, effectively ending her chances of getting another job in the field, Joppy said.
"I'm not the first nurse to go through this, but I pray I'm the last," she said in an interview Wednesday.
HealthOne said in a statement that it "strongly disagrees" with Tuesday's verdict in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, and plans to appeal. Hospitals have an obligation to report improper care, the statement said.
"Ms. Joppy chose to turn off the ventilator on a living patient, which was outside the scope of her nursing license and not the standard of care for end-of-life patients," HealthOne's statement said. "Ms. Joppy's employment was terminated because of the actions she took, and those actions alone."
Jurors awarded Joppy $5 million in compensation for lost wages, damage to her reputation, emotional distress and other harm. They added $15 million in punitive damages.
An award of that size isn't typical in an employment discrimination case, said Jennifer Robinson, Joppy's attorney. The jury, which didn't include any African-American members, clearly saw the hospital mistreated Joppy because of her race and looked for an excuse to fire her, she said.
"It shows the egregiousness of the hospital's conduct," Robinson said.
Joppy said she's had unstable housing since the hospital fired her, and had to live separately from her 15-year-old daughter because she no longer had the income to provide for her.
"I'm looking forward to my daughter and I healing together and having a home to call our own," she said.
The discrimination at HCA HealthOne Aurora is a symptom of deeper racism in health care and in the country as a whole, Joppy said. Hopefully, the verdict will encourage people to examine themselves and work on rooting out their biases, she said.
"We are sick people," she said. Racism "is a condition here in America that needs to be treated and healed."