Self-Defense at Work and the Risk to a Nursing License

Attorney Answer

On what you describe you were not the aggressor, and Connecticut law permits reasonable physical force to stop an assault in progress — but whether your response qualifies is decided by a fact-finder, not settled by the fact that you did not start it.

The standard is Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-19(a): "a person is justified in using reasonable physical force upon another person to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of physical force, and he may use such degree of force which he reasonably believes to be necessary for such purpose." Subsection (c) sets the limits that most often defeat the defense: it is unavailable if the actor provoked the use of force with intent to cause injury, if he was the initial aggressor — unless he withdrew and effectively communicated that intent — or if the force was the product of combat by agreement. On your account none of those three applies: you were struck first, you did not agree to a fight, and you were blocking a second blow. That is the right shape for a justification. What the statute does not do is declare you in the clear. Whether your belief was reasonable and the degree of force necessary are questions for a trier of fact.

On what could even be charged: assault in the third degree under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-61 is a class A misdemeanor, and every subdivision requires actual physical injury — intentionally causing physical injury, recklessly causing serious physical injury, or with criminal negligence causing physical injury by means of a deadly weapon, dangerous instrument or electronic defense weapon. A hand landing on a cheek that causes no injury does not satisfy any of them. That does not mean no charge is possible; Connecticut has lesser offenses that reach offensive physical contact causing no injury. But the injury element is a real limit, and it is worth knowing that the most commonly assumed charge does not fit these facts.

The licensing question runs on a separate track and needs to be treated separately. A criminal justification does not automatically resolve an employer investigation, an agency review, or a licensing complaint. Those bodies apply professional conduct standards, not the criminal code, and they decide on a lower burden of proof. What protects you there is not the legal argument — it is the record: a contemporaneous written account, a prompt self-report rather than a report that arrives after someone else's version, and evidence that you were the one assaulted.

What you can do

1. Do not write out your own account of what happened. Notes you create yourself are not protected by attorney-client privilege, can be seized or subpoenaed, and can be used to impeach you if your testimony later differs. Instead preserve the records that already exist — texts, call logs, emails, receipts, photos and location history — along with the names and contact details of any witnesses, and give your account to your attorney verbally. The sequence, who struck first, the racial abuse, what you said to the officers, who was present, and exactly what contact you made and why. 2. Report it in writing to your staffing agency and to the facility today. Being the first to report, with a calm factual account, matters more than being right. 3. Go back to the police and make a report about the second slap. You declined to press charges on the first incident; the assault after they left is a separate incident, and there is currently no record of it. Get an incident number. 4. Ask the facility in writing, immediately, to preserve any video covering the area and time. Footage is routinely overwritten within days, and a written preservation request is what stops that. 5. Get medical attention if you were struck, and make sure the note records how it happened. 6. Identify witnesses by name while people still remember, and write down what each of them saw. 7. Do not contact the young person or anyone connected to him, and do not post about it anywhere. 8. If police contact you as a suspect, do not give a statement without a lawyer. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-19 is a justification raised with counsel in a case, not something to argue at the door.