This document discusses several key concepts in law including different sources of law such as constitutional law, statutory law, and administrative law. It also outlines different types of law like common law, public law, criminal law, private law, contract law, and tort law. Tort law is further divided into unintentional torts like negligence and malpractice, intentional torts like fraud and battery, and quasi-intentional torts like defamation. The document concludes by summarizing recent legal trends in nursing including issues with managed care organizations, increasing malpractice claims against nurses, criminalization of negligence, and challenges with confidentiality in electronic communications.

1. GENERAL LEGAL
CONCEPTS
RECENT LEGAL
TRENDS

2. LAW as “that which is laid down, ordained, or
established; a body of rules of action or conduct
prescribed by controlling authority and having binding
legal force; and that which must be obeyed and
followed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal
consequences” (1990, pp. 884-885).

3. SOURCES OF LAW
1. Constitutional Law
2. Statutory/ Legislative Law
3. Administrative Law

4. Constitutional Law
A constitution is a formal set of rules and principles
that describe the powers of a government and the
rights of people. The principles laid out in a
constitution, coupled with a description of how these
principles are to be interpreted and carried, form the
basis of constitutional law.

5. Statutory/Legislative Law
 Formal laws written and enacted by federal, state,
or local legislatures
 Are those made by the legislative branch of
government.
 Are designed to declare, command, or prohibit.

6. Administrative Law
 Involves the operation of government agencies.
National, state and local government set up
administrative agencies to do the work of
government. These agencies regulate such activities
as education, public health, social welfare
programs, and the professions.

7. Administrative Law
 When statutes are enacted, administrative
agencies are given the authority to carry out
the specific intentions of the statutes, by
creating rules and regulations that enforce the
statutory laws.

8. Types of Law
1. Common Law
2. Public Law
3. Criminal Law
4. Private Law
5. Contract Law
6. Tort Law

9. Common Law
Is defined as law derived from principles rather than
rules and regulations. It is based on justice, reason
and common sense.
In the common law system, decisions are based upon
the earlier court rulings in similar cases. These are
also known as precedents.

10. Public Law
Defines a person’s rights and obligations in
relationship to the government and describes the
various divisions of government and their powers.
One important branch of public law is criminal law.
Criminal law deals with crimes—that is, actions
considered harmful to society.

11. Criminal Law
Refers to conduct that is offensive or harmful to society as a
whole. If an act is expressly forbidden or prohibited by statute
or by common law principles, it is referred to as a crime. Most
often, crimes are viewed as offenses against the state rather
than against the individuals, and the state, city or
administrative body brings the legal action against the
offender.

12. Criminal Law
 Felonies are more serious crimes that carry
significant fines and jail sentences
 Misdemeanor is a less serious crime, usually
punishable by a fine, a short jail sentence or
both.

13. Private Law
 Is also called civil law.
 Used to distinguish that area of the law concerned
with the rights and duties of private persons and
citizens.
 Divided into a variety of legal specialties: contract
law, labor law, and tort law, among others.

14. Contract Law
 It deals with the right and obligations of people who
make contracts. A contract is a legally enforceable
agreement between two or more people. Contracts
maybe either written or oral; however, in the
presence of both a written and oral contract, the
written contract takes a precedence.

15. Tort Law
 A tort is a wrong or injury that a person suffers
because of someone else’s action, either intentional
or unintentional. The tortious action may cause
bodily harm; invade another’s privacy; damage a
person’s property. The victim may sue the person or
persons responsible.

16. Unintentional Torts - occur when an act or omission
causes unintended injury or harm to another person.
1. Negligence is “the omission to do something that a
reasonable person, guided by those ordinary
considerations which ordinarily regulate human affairs,
would do, or doing something which a reasonable and
prudent person would not do” (Creighton, 1986, p.
141)

17. 2. Malpractice is a type of negligence committed by a
person in professional capacity. More stringent than
simple negligence, malpractice is the form of
negligence in which any professional misconduct,
unreasonable lack of professional skill, or non
adherence to the accepted standard of care causes
injury to the patient.

18. Intentional torts are willful actions that violate another
person’s right or property (Catalano, 1995)
Fraud is deliberate deception for the purpose of securing an
unfair or unlawful gain.
Assault is defined as the unjustifiable attempt or threat to
touch a person without consent that the results in fear of
immediately harmful or threatening contact.
Battery is the unlawful, harmful, or unwarranted touching of
another or the carrying out of threatened physical harm.

19.  False imprisonment is the unjustifiable detention of a person
within fixed boundaries, or an act intended to result in such
confinement, without consent and without authority of law.
 Conversion of property arises when health care practitioner
interferes with the right to possession of the patient’s
property.
 Trespass to land when interferes with another possession of
land.

20. Quasi-international - when intent is lacking but there is a
volitional action and direct causation.
Defamation occurs when one harms a person’s reputation and
good name, diminishes other’s value or esteem, or arouses
negative feelings toward the person in others by the
communication of false, malicious, unprivileged, or harmful
words.
Slander occurs when one defames or damages the reputation
of another by speaking unprivileged or false words.

21.  Libel consists of printed defamation by written words and
images that injure a person’s reputation or cause others to
avoid, ridicule, or view the person with contempt.
 Invasion of privacy occurs when a person’s privacy is
violated.
 Right to privacy is the right to be left alone or to be free
from unwanted publicity.

22. LEGAL TRENDS IN NURSING
1. Legal trends involving Managed Care Organizations
2. Malpractice Claims against Nurses
3. Criminalization of Nurses, Professional Negligence
4. Confidentiality of Electronic Communications

23. Legal trends involving Managed Care Organizations
• Promising efficiency and economy of health care delivery,
managed care organizations (MCO’s) are replacing traditional
fee-for-service providers. As a result of policies that encourage
restrictions of expensive services, MCOs are experiencing
significant financial corporate liability losses (fiesta,
1996b).being both the insurer and provider of care, MCOs have
a vested interest in providing the most cost-efficient services.

24. This can sometimes lead to diminution of the quality of
care and liability.
 Direct liability occurs when negative patient outcomes
result from the MCO’s actions that are unduly influenced
by cost-containment measures. Such actions may include
improper denial of care, or financial incentives to
providers that result in a denial (O’Keefe, 2000).

25. Malpractice Claims against Nurses
As a health care system changes, nurses are the
target of a growing number of malpractice changes.
According to fiesta (1996a), though many issues
point toward examples of corporate liability, cases
involving the actions of individual nurses are also
increasing.

26. Traditional errors such as burns, falls and
medication errors seem to be more common
than in the past. This leads to the speculation
that negligent actions are a direct result of
increased stress in workplace and decreased
morale.

27. Criminalization of Nurses, Professional Negligence
Traditionally, nurses who make errors that cause harm
to patients have been charged with the unintentional
tort of professional negligence (malpractice). Either
heard in civil court or settled out of court, charges of
negligence against nurses have not resulted in criminal
prosecution.

28. Confidentiality of Electronic Communications
This is the age of electronic communication. We use
electronic media every day: telephone, wireless phone,
cellphone, fax, voice mail, pager, internet, videotape, satellite
and microwave transmission, e-mail and radio
communication. We discuss patient care over telephones,
send records via fax or e-mail, and participate in video
conferencing.

29. Regardless of the media, we still have a duty to
protect patient privacy and confidentiality.
Nurses’ use of electronic communications raises a
number of legal and ethical questions. How does
electronic communication affect the regulation of
nursing practice?

30. Telenursing is the provision of nursing
care utilizing any form of electronic
media. In addition to confidentiality
issues stipulated in codes of ethics and
state of nursing regulations.

31. THANK
YOU!