Judge backs Johns Hopkins firing nurses over IV policy violation

A federal labor judge has upheld Johns Hopkins Medical Associates’ decision to fire two nurses at its Lutherville outpatient surgical center after an internal review found they had administered IVs to one another, a ruling that reaches beyond the individuals involved and into the hospital giant’s staffing culture, discipline process and workplace trust.

Administrative Law Judge Arthur J. Amchan ruled on April 24, 2026, that Ashley Garcia and Chantal Lightsy did not prove their May 24, 2023 terminations were retaliation for workplace-safety complaints. He said the evidence was enough for Johns Hopkins to dismiss the nurses over the IV policy violation, closing a dispute that had been pending before the National Labor Relations Board for nearly three years.

The case centered on a small unit of about six nurses at Johns Hopkins Medical Associates’ outpatient surgical center in Lutherville, where the caseload included ophthalmology and fertility treatment. Garcia and Lightsy were terminated the same day as another nurse, Sary Valles, while Suzanne Hutter received a final written warning. The unit was overseen by nurse administrator Madalyn Biggs, who was on site only on alternate days, adding another layer to the question of how closely the workplace was monitored.

The hospital said the discipline grew out of an internal review that began after departing nurse Cathy Torgeson raised concerns in an April 6, 2023 exit interview and email. Torgeson said she had seen employees nap in the unit and, on at least two occasions, give each other IVs. She later sent video evidence to Hopkins vice president Sarah Disney on April 26, prompting a human-resources investigation in early May.

Amchan took issue with how Hopkins handled Abby Chen, another nurse seen in the same video who was not disciplined. He rejected the hospital’s explanation that it could not identify Chen, noting the small size of the unit and describing the investigation as troubling in part because it appeared to have been conducted with a view to building a case against specific employees.

For Baltimore, the ruling lands in the middle of a broader conversation about what safety enforcement looks like inside one of the region’s most influential health systems. Hopkins has long been watched not just as a hospital employer, but as a setting where staffing pressure, labor conflict and patient-care standards can collide. This decision is likely to shape how nurses and managers at Hopkins read future discipline, and how much trust remains inside a workplace where a six-person unit, a few emails and a video could lead to firings that took nearly three years to litigate.