Correct answer—D. Rationales: Institutional policy is the authority if other legal venues haven’t addressed the specific issue. All three of the options listed can govern the practice of emergency department nursing. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and can’t be overturned by state or federal statute. In order of hierarchy, the Constitution is first and then federal, state, and common law.

Correct answer—B. Rationales: A tort is defined as a civil wrong, whether intentional or accidental, that results in injury to a person or the person’s property.

Correct answer—C. Rationales: Meeting the standards of care and documenting them may not prevent litigation, but these actions will certainly provide support that the standards of care were known and adhered to. Actions should be documented for all clients, not just for difficult ones. Documentation of nurse-client ratios doesn’t relieve the nurse of the responsibility to provide care within accepted standards. Accepted practice is to document what was done for a client, not the opposite.

Correct answer—B. Rationales: The plaintiff must prove that the care received was substandard; it isn’t necessary to prove intent to cause harm. Mitigating circumstances are issues that would be brought up by the defendant, not the plaintiff. Negligence is by definition an unintentional tort or a civil wrong done without intent by the defendant; therefore, it isn’t necessary to demonstrate lack of intent.

Correct answer—B. Rationales: Negligence is the most common unintentional tort involving health care personnel. Malpractice is a more restricted, specialized kind of negligence, defined as a violation of professional duty to act with reasonable care and in good faith. Assault and battery are intentional torts.

Correct answer—D. Rationales: Battery is the touching of a person without that person’s consent. A nurse who treats a client beyond what the client has consented to has committed battery (the theory of implied consent doesn’t apply to nonemergency conditions). Leaving foreign objects in a client’s body after surgery and failing to obtain informed consent are examples of negligence. Threatening a client is an example of assault.

Correct answer—B. Rationales: If a client sues a nurse for negligence, the client must prove that the nurse owed him a specific duty and that she breached this duty. A breach of duty in this case means that the nurse didn’t provide the client with care within the accepted standard. A breach isn’t always willful, as implied in option A. Threatening a client is assault, more accurately described as a direct invasion of a client’s rights rather than a breach of duty. Confining a client to a psychiatric unit without a physician’s order is false imprisonment, another example of direct invasion of a client’s rights.