Lawsuits fly in hospital assault case
Man charged with aggravated assault, victim suing IHA and each other over 2014 incident at PRH
Foreshadowing a likely defence at his criminal trial, a man charged with the aggravated assault of a psychiatrist inside Penticton Regional Hospital now claims in a civil lawsuit he was “justifiably” forced to attack to escape false imprisonment.
Meanwhile, the doctor who Gregory Stanley Nield is charged with assaulting has filed a civil lawsuit of his own against his assailant and the Interior Health Authority.
The 33-year-old Nield was arrested in December 2014 after Dr. Rajeev Sheoran was severely beaten while conducting a closed-door interview with Nield in the psychiatric ward at PRH.
Nield’s criminal trial on that matter is due to begin in March in B.C. Supreme Court in Penticton.
Earlier this month, however, he filed a civil lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court in Kelowna seeking an unspecified monetary award against Sheoran and Interior Health due to the alleged mishandling of his treatment.
Nield claims Sheoran did not complete an examination required to hold him under the Mental Health Act, thereby resulting in “false imprisonment.”
Sheoran is also alleged to have been negligent in his treatment of Nield by “deliberately antagonizing and provoking” his patient, refusing to let him leave the hospital and forcing him “to take drugs contrary to his wishes and under threat of RCMP involvement.”
“As a result of the false imprisonment by the defendants, (Nield) attempted to escape and justifiably assaulted the defendant Sheoran in the process,” the lawsuit states.
By contrast, Sheoran claims Nield, “who practises boxing and jiu jitsu and has a history of extreme violence,” attacked “suddenly and without provocation,” then walked out of the interview room and advised staff that Sheoran “might be dead.”
Sheoran sustained a brain injury, broken jaw, broken nose, broken teeth and other facial injuries in the attack, and continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments, according to his lawsuit, which was filed in September 2016 in B.C. Supreme Court in Kelowna.
Besides an unspecified judgement against Nield for the injuries, the doctor is also seeking to have Interior Health declared negligent because it “knew or ought to have known that its facilities were unsafe and inadequate” for “high-risk assessments” of patients such as Nield.
Sheoran alleges further negligence on Interior Health’s part by failing to provide him a panic alarm, failing to post security guards in the psychiatric ward and failing to follow policies required to prevent violence against doctors.
None of the allegations in either lawsuit has been tested in court. None of the defendants has yet responded to either of the civil claims.
Nield has been out on bail since February 2015.
He dumped his Vancouverbased legal team in October 2016 and hired Kelowna lawyer Stan Tessmer, who then successfully applied to have his client tried by judge alone, rather than by a jury as he chose initially.