Unit 3 Liability Issues

Project

January 21, 2013

The Doctrine of Apparent Authority in Medical Malpractice Cases explains that a hospital will be deemed to have held itself out as the provider of care, unless it gives the patient notice that the doctor was an independent contractor. Under the doctrine of corporate liability, it is the hospital itself that is negligent. The article is stating that hospitals are liable for the mistakes of their workers and are not able to put the blame on the physician, although the physician may be an independent contractor. Hospitals and health systems do more than provide physical facilities and accommodations for the practice of medicine. They are the focus for arranging, furnishing, and providing the community with an entire range of health-related services--preventive, curative, and palliative; outpatient and inpatient; acute and long term ( Showalter p.136).

The main point of the article is to explain the liability of hospitals under the doctrine of apparent authority. Before the mid 1960s, courts generally limited hospitals’ corporate duties to such issues as selection and retention of employees and maintenance of hospital equipment, buildings, and grounds (Showalter p. 136). The increased use of the doctrine of apparent authority will have major implications in malpractice cases against hospitals. These decisions establish that a hospital is liable for the negligence of certain physicians, even though they are not paid employees of the hospital. The limitation on liability does not limit the vicarious liability of the hospital for the negligence of its employees. Therefore the doctrine of apparent authority provides another source of compensation to an injured patient when such a hospital-based physician is under-insured.

The article concludes that present-day hospitals do far more that furnish