Court upholds $30,000 cost condition for nurse’s relicensing

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Magdala Sims will have to pay $30,000 if she applies to have her nursing license reinstated. In an opinion filed Jan. 20, the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the Minnesota Board of Nursing‘s assessment of costs.

Sims’ Minnesota nursing license was temporarily suspended in 2023. The nursing board’s review panel alleged that she fraudulently purchased education credentials from a Florida nursing school and that her Michigan nursing license was suspended.

The review panel initiated contested-case proceedings against Sims. An administrative law judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Sims violated Minnesota statutes dictating authorization to work as a nurse and recommended that the board take disciplinary action. The review panel submitted a proposed final order to the board, recommending license revocation. It also recommended requiring Sims to pay for the cost of the disciplinary proceedings if she applied for relicensure.

The final cost of the expenses incurred totaled $51,686.60, which included work provided by the Office of Administrative Hearings (now Court of Administrative Hearings) and the Attorney General’s Office, which represented the review panel. The Office of Administrative Hearings’ invoices were itemized, while the Attorney General’s Office submitted a one-page report listing the total number of hours spent. Sims objected to the statement of costs, claiming that the costs were excessive and punitive, representing an “inordinate amount of money.”

Her license was revoked indefinitely. However, she was given permission to apply for relicensure after one year if she met other conditions. One condition was paying the costs incurred by the Office Of Administrative Hearings and the Attorney General’s Office. However, it reduced the total to $30,000.

Sims appealed, contending that the board exceeded its statutory authority and committed legal error by accepting a lump-sum cost request from the Office of Administrative Hearings  and Attorney General’s Office that allegedly lacked statutory authorization. She argued that she was never able to challenge the reasonableness of the costs.

The board maintained that it had statutory authority.

“It’s only a condition should she ever reapply for licensure,” Jamal Zayed, who represented the Minnesota Board of Nursing, asserted. “She has not been ordered to pay these $30,000 within 60 days, or anything like that.”

The court agreed, finding that the board not only has authority but requires licensees to pay the costs of revocation proceedings are a relicense condition.

Sims further argued that her procedural due process rights were violated when she was assessed non-itemized Attorney General’s Office costs, depriving her of a meaningful opportunity to object to the costs and be heard by the board.

“There’s no way that my client could respond to a lump sum,” Marlene Garvis, attorney at Marlene S. Garvis LLC, who represented Sims, argued. “If you get a lump sum from somebody, and they don’t itemize it, there’s no way to know where they come from, who did it, when they did it, how they did it, the time they spent on it, what it was for.”

The court, without deciding the issue, assumed that she had a property interests in her nursing license. However, it was not convinced that she suffered erroneous deprivation of her rights or that additional procedures would have minimized that risk.

“Sims received notice of the basis for the board’s decision, including the statement of costs with an invoice listing each [Attorney General’s Office] professional who worked on the case and the total hours and costs for their services,” wrote Judge Elizabeth Bentley. “Sims then had the opportunity to submit written exceptions to the costs and to present oral argument against them in front of the board.”

Bentley also wrote that the board apparently noted Sims’ objections, as the costs were reduced by over $20,000. While the opinion noted that an explanation for the decision to reduce the costs would have been helpful, it noted that the majority of the costs the board paid to the Office of Administrative Hearings were uncontested on appeal. The remaining costs, totaling over $4,000, were reasonable, the court found, because it represented over 175 hours of work.