Prior Jury Verdict Barred Repeat Negligent Credentialing Claims Against Hospital
The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that patients could not pursue negligent credentialing and corporate negligence claims against a hospital where those issues had already been decided in a prior test case involving the same physician. Multiple patients sued a hospital after a neurosurgeon was accused of performing experimental and unnecessary surgeries. To manage the litigation, plaintiffs entered into a shared trust fund arrangement, and one case proceeded to trial first. In that earlier case, a jury found the physician negligent but found that the hospital was not negligent in credentialing or monitoring him. When another patient later sued the hospital based on the same alleged failures, the hospital moved for summary judgment, arguing the claims were barred by collateral estoppel. The Court of Appeals agreed, holding that the plaintiffs were in privity through the shared trust arrangement and that the hospital’s credentialing and oversight practices had already been fully litigated. The court reversed the denial of summary judgment and ordered judgment entered for the hospital. Collar v. Fletcher Hospital, Inc.
Hospital Can Face Direct Negligence Claims Despite Independent Contractor Defense
The Illinois Appellate Court reversed a trial court’s decision that prevented a patient’s estate from amending its complaint against two hospitals following a fatal breakdown in care during an interfacility transfer. A patient presented to an emergency department with abdominal pain and was transferred to another hospital. Although no CT scan was performed before transfer, the receiving hospital was told that one had been completed and did not order another scan. The patient later died after suffering cardiac arrest. The estate sued the hospitals, alleging negligence arising from miscommunication about whether a CT scan had been performed. The trial court granted partial summary judgment to the hospitals, finding that emergency physicians were independent contractors and that the patient had verbally agreed to consent forms stating that relationship. The Appellate Court reversed, holding that the plaintiff should have been allowed to amend the complaint to assert direct negligence claims against the hospitals. The court found that the consent forms did not clearly notify the patient that the treating physicians were independent contractors and that factual issues remained over whether the hospitals held out the physicians as employees and whether the patient reasonably relied on the hospitals to provide her care. White v. Iroquois Memorial Hospital