Yarbrough v. Nw. Memorial Hosp. — Aug. 2016 (Summary)

APPARENT AGENCY

Yarbrough v. Nw. Memorial Hosp.
No.1-14-1585 (Ill. App. Ct. Aug. 19, 2016)

In answering a certified question from a lower court, the Appellate Court of Illinois for the First District, Fifth Division held that a hospital can be held vicariously liable under the doctrine of apparent agency for the acts of the employees of an unrelated, independent clinic that is not a party to the present litigation.

This interlocutory appeal arose in the context of a malpractice case that was based on a premature birth of a baby girl.  The infant’s mother had received prenatal care at a federally funded clinic that was not affiliated with the defendant hospital, but at which she had been informed that she would deliver her baby and receive certain aspects of her pregnancy care, such as ultrasounds and other diagnostic testing at defendant hospital.  The mother experienced complications prior to the delivery and ultimately she delivered the infant at only 26 weeks’ gestation, with the infant experiencing numerous complications.

She and the infant’s father sued a number of defendants for various malpractice-based claims; however, the claim at issue in this appeal was the allegation that despite the fact that the hospital was not affiliated with the federally funded clinic, the hospital should nonetheless be held liable for the allegedly negligent acts by certain healthcare providers who provided the mother’s prenatal care at the clinic under the theory of apparent authority. The defendant hospital argued that the theory of apparent authority could not possibly apply here as the allegedly negligent conduct did not occur at the hospital, but at an unrelated and independent clinic.

The court disagreed, determining that the infant’s parents had sufficiently pled the elements of an apparent authority claim, noting a number of factors, including that the defendant hospital promotes itself as a “community oriented hospital that collaborates with neighborhood centers,” including the clinic where the mother received her prenatal care, the hospital publicized its relationship with that clinic on its website, the hospital promoted the fact that “100%” of the prenatal patients at the clinic delivered at the defendant hospital, and that per an affiliation agreement between the hospital and the clinic, the hospital was designated as the primary site for any acute care services that clinic patients required and also called for a hospital representative to sit on the clinic board.