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After 100 Years, Hospital Liability Takes a Sharp Turn

BY Mary-Christine Sungaila
May 01, 2003

You are ordinarily not liable for the misdeeds of others, right? Sure, you can be vicariously liable for certain conduct of employees and agents, but not others you may associate with, such as independent contractors. Except sometimes. And now, if you're a hospital that allows independent contractor physicians to treat patients at your facility, “sometimes” is presumptively “all the time.” That is the rule laid down in the recent decision, Mejia v. Community Hospital of San Bernardino (2002), 99 Cal.App.4th 1448.

Mejia has taken a sharp right turn off the path hospital liability jurisprudence has taken over the last century. In fact, a treatise last year discussing hospitals' direct liability for acts of independent, non-salaried doctors reported, “So far there is no recorded case in California where such liability has been imposed because of the acts of a medical doctor.” (1 MacDonald, Cal. Medical Malpractice: Law and Practice (2001 supp.) Ostensible Agency, ' 4.20.) Mejia blazes a new trail in this area by imposing such liability under the doctrine of “ostensible agency,” a legal fiction that has been created to impose vicarious liability for injuries caused by someone who is not a “real” agent of the defendant, but is nonetheless treated as the defendant's agent for public policy reasons.

Whether other appellate courts follow Mejia down this road remains to be seen. Hospital administrators obviously hope not, out of concern that the Mejia rule will threaten their continued ability to offer medical services by dramatically increasing potential liability and legal costs.

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