A pile of flowers and a note eulogizing Bobby Smallwood, a security officer for Legacy Health, sit outside the Good Samaritan Medical Center, where he was killed during a confrontation on July 30, 2023.
Jake Thomas / The Lund Report
A new lawsuit against Legacy Good Samaritan blames the slaying of security guard Bobby Smallwood on a failure to follow the hospital’s own safety policies.
Filed on behalf of Smallwood’s estate, the $35 million suit comes more than a year after he was fatally shot by PoniaX Calles, who had reportedly made multiple threatening remarks to staff and hid firearms in the hospital prior to the fatal encounter. Smallwood’s death sparked an outpouring of grief from nurses and other hospital employees who faulted Legacy for what they called management’s lacking response to their concerns over workplace violence.
Filed Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court by attorney Thomas D’Amore, the suit follows a national surge in violence against health care workers as well as in Oregon, along with complaints of inept responses from hospital managers. A bill that would have stiffened penalties for knowingly assaulting hospital workers failed earlier this year, but lawmakers are expected to try again.
Calles had accompanied his partner to Legacy Good Samaritan in Portland where she gave birth to their son. According to the suit, Calles should have been immediately removed from the hospital due to his aggressive behavior and staff members’ discovery of firearms he’d stashed in his partner’s room.
“Despite holding the Hospital out as a facility with zero tolerance for weapons, Defendant Legacy Good Samaritan took woefully inadequate measures to ensure that the Hospital was free of weapons,” the lawsuit states.
Related: Suspect in fatal shooting at Portland hospital shot and killed by police
Following the death of Smallwood, 44, Legacy promised to add more metal detectors, Taser-armed security officers and other security measures. A Legacy spokesperson declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
The lawsuit contends the outcome would have been different had Legacy management followed its policies.
Calles was “immediately hostile” to hospital staff when they tried to care for his partner, becoming “agitated, verbally aggressive” and interfering with procedures, according to the suit. A hospital guard called in two additional guards to deescalate the situation with Calles.
That should have meant Calles’ immediate exclusion from the hospital, according to the complaint. But he was again allowed to stay and attempted to break down the door to the operating room where his partner was receiving care, punching in the direction of a nurse and telling staff, “I will see my son no matter what, take him with me and leave, even if I have to go through you and these doors to do it.”
Calles still was not excluded and continued to berate staff, calling his son’s infant ID bracelet a “shackle” that needed to be removed immediately. When staff told him why a bracelet was required, Calles responded, “if you guys keep acting like this, someone is going to get killed around here,” the suit claimed.
A nurse triggered a panic alarm that summoned hospital security and a nursing supervisor, according to the lawsuit.
“Hospital nursing staff explained to the nursing supervisor that they did not feel safe with Calles and asked that he be excluded from the Hospital,” the lawsuit states. “The nursing supervisor instead spoke with Calles and gave him a final warning. He did not exclude Calles per Hospital staff requests or the Workplace Violence Policy.”
Nurses reported Calles’ threatening behavior to the hospital’s internal tracking system but they were not accessible or provided to hospital staff who interacted with him, according to the suit. Instead, hospital management emailed staff with “support options” but did not exclude Calles.
On the fourth day, the hospital charge nurse and nursing supervisor agreed to remove Calles and two guards were summoned to remove him, according to the lawsuit.
Related: Health care workers facing violence on the job ask hospital systems, politicians for help
That morning, nurses searched the room where Calles’ partner had been receiving care and found a duffel bag containing two firearms and ammunition. The discovery should have meant Calles’ immediate exclusion under the hospital’s policies, the lawsuit states.
Calles’ partner told a security guard that there was a third gun he was likely carrying with him, according to the lawsuit. A hospital security guard informed other employees, but not Smallwood, that “there is a 99.99% chance [Calles] is armed with a firearm right now,” the lawsuit states.
The hospital’s lead security guard called the manager asking to put the facility on a “Code Silver,” an internal alert warning of an active shooter, the lawsuit states. The manager left it up to the guard to call Code Silver but the guard did not know how to do so, according to the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Smallwood had been summoned to help with the situation and a security guard attempted to communicate with him with hand gestures through a set of glass doors, the lawsuit states.
Smallwood told Calles he needed to pat him down but Calles said he would leave instead, according to the lawsuit. As Smallwood was escorting Calles, staff prevented them from leaving the hospital. Calles responded by turning around and shooting Smallwood in the neck.
The hospital called a Code Silver after Smallwood was shot and did not render aid to him for eight minutes, according to the lawsuit.
Forty-two minutes passed after hospital security became concerned that Calles was armed, but Smallwood was never warned, according to the suit.
Calles fled and was later killed by police.
This story was originally published by The Lund Report, an independent nonprofit health news organization based in Oregon.
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