Half a dozen nursing homes in New Jersey have filed a lawsuit against the state’s minimum staffing mandate, challenging its constitutionality.

They are joined by the Health Care Association of New Jersey, according to a complaint, filed last week. The nursing homes argue that the 2020 law setting minimum staffing requirements is unachievable due to severe worker shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Jersey’s staffing mandate was implemented in response to the pandemic’s devastating impact on the state’s nursing homes, and mandates specific staffing levels: one certified nursing aide for every eight residents during the day shift, 10 on evening shifts, and 14 on night shifts. The nursing homes argue that these requirements are impossible to meet given the current labor market, which has been stretched thin by increased competition for workers and persistent shortages.

According to the lawsuit, the state’s nursing homes have faced significant financial penalties for failing to comply with these staffing levels. The Health Care Association of New Jersey claims that some facilities have incurred fines exceeding $100,000. The lawsuit contends that the imposition of daily fines of $1,000 for non-compliance violates constitutional protections related to due process and excessive fines.

“The result is a classic zero-sum game with guaranteed losers. If on a given day one Nursing Home is lucky enough to have sufficient staff show up for work, by necessity other Nursing Homes will fail to comply with the Staffing Law’s mandate,” the plaintiffs said in their filing, as noted in a report published in the New Jersey Monitor.

The Department of Health, along with New Jersey’s Health Commissioner, Kaitlan Baston, is named as a defendant in the case. 

The state’s lawsuit highlights problems with staffing in the long-term care sector, which are prevalent not only in New Jersey, but across the nation, with legislative and legal efforts underway to defeat the federal staffing mandate. 

Lawsuits to dismiss the federal minimum staffing mandate have been filed in Texas courts. Meanwhile, along with legislative efforts to defeat the federal mandate, various health care advocacy groups are lending their voice to fight it.

Moreover, staffing issues are pointing to a crisis of access to nursing home care brewing across the United States, according to a new report from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL).

And in New Jersey, a report from the New Jersey Task Force on Long-Term Care Quality and Safety points to an alarming trend of workforce reduction within the industry. The report identified factors such as low wages, limited advancement opportunities, training expenses, and ageism as significant barriers. With New Jersey’s aging population expected to increase, the task force warned that these staffing shortages are likely to worsen.