Hospital Corporate Liability: The Trend Continues

Abstract

Traditionally, hospitals have been liable for the acts of their employees or agents under the doctrine of respondeat superior, but have not been considered liable for the actions of those whom they did not employ or over whom they had no control. Accordingly, hospitals and their insurers were able to avoid legal responsibility for the acts of medical malpractice committed by physicians on their medical staffs. Although elements of a new and distinct theory of hospital corporate responsibility unrelated to respondeat superior had emerged before, the widely discussed opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court in Darling v. Charleston Community Hospital is generally considered the hallmark of a change in judicial thinking in respect to a hospital's duty to monitor the quality of care rendered within its walls. However, Darling was not a forerunner of a spate of similar holdings, and, in fact, has never been specifically relied upon even in Illinois. Only in the last several years have significant additional strides been taken in developing this theory. Two recent intermediate appellate decisions in Wisconsin and North Carolina seem to reflect the trend of the law and the affirmative duty of a hospital to monitor the quality of care rendered by its medical staff.