Verdicts

The Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas has denied summary judgment to a Pennsylvania hospital that claimed a patient could not reasonably have believed that a contracting physician accused of medical malpractice was a direct employee of the hospital. Oscarson v. Moses Taylor Hospital, PICS No. 16-0194.

The plaintiff, Nathan Oscarson, was seen at Moses Taylor Hospital by Dr. Michael Yoder, an employee of Pathology Associates of Northeastern Pennsylvania Ltd., which practices out of the hospital. Dr. Yoder performed a biopsy on a mass on Oscarson's neck, then determined that the mass was malignant. He recommended that Oscarson undergo a two-part surgical procedure, which he did. It was then discovered that the mass was not malignant. Oscarson sued the doctor and Moses Taylor Hospital for medical malpractice, claiming that the unnecessary surgical procedures he was subjected to left him permanently disfigured and in pain. Even though he learned that Yoder was not an employee of the hospital, he asserted that the doctor was the ostensible agent of the hospital, and that the facility was therefore responsible for the doctor's negligence.