In September 2020, decedent James Lewis’s surviving children filed suit in Fulton County Superior Court against more than a dozen defendants, including Emory Healthcare, Inc. and various providers at an Emory Hospital, WHS, Windy Hill Hospital, Kennestone Hospital, Inc., Nazim Syed, M.D., and Nagimesi Wanasika, M.D., seeking damages for Lewis’s wrongful death. Lewis’s estate administrator later was added as a plaintiff to that action. The plaintiffs alleged that Lewis experienced numerous complications after undergoing an elective laminectomy at an Emory hospital in November 2017. In December 2017, he was transferred to Windy Hill Hospital (a WHS-affiliated facility), where, according to the plaintiffs, he was treated by Drs. Syed and Wanasika (among others) and developed several problems due to multiple deviations from the standard of care. As a result, in April 2018, Lewis was transferred to Kennestone Hospital (also a WHS-affiliated facility), where, the plaintiffs alleged, additional deviations from the standard of care resulted in his pain, suffering, and death. The plaintiffs entered into a confidential settlement with the Emory-related defendants, after which they dismissed the entire Fulton County action in April 2022.
Later that day, the plaintiffs filed a renewal action pursuant to OCGA § 9-2-61(a) in Cobb County Superior Court, naming only WHS as a defendant. They again alleged that WHS medical personnel deviated from the standard of care in their treatment of Lewis during his stays at Windy Hill Hospital and Kennestone Hospital, resulting in his pain, suffering, and death. The plaintiffs further alleged that WHS is both directly liable for its own acts and vicariously liable for the actions of both hospitals’ medical providers. They asserted causes of action for negligence and wrongful death (Count 1) and failure to institute and/or implement policies, training, and supervision (Count 2). In an affidavit attached to their complaint, the plaintiffs’ expert identified several individual providers who, he attested, violated the standard of care during Lewis’s treatment, including Drs. Syed and Wanasika.
The trial court granted summary judgment to WHS, concluding that WHS is not a proper party to this case because it did not employ Drs. Syed and Wanasika when they treated Lewis. The plaintiffs appealed.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia stated in its June 9, 2026 decision: “For an entity to be liable for a doctor’s actions, it must be shown that the doctor was the entity’s employee, which requires establishing that “the employer, under the contract either oral or written, assumes the right to control the time, manner and method of executing the work, as distinguished from the right merely to require certain definite results in conformity to the contract.” … the right to control the manner and method of work is retained where a principal or employer “has assumed the right to tell the person how to perform all details of the job, including the tools he should use and the procedures he should follow.””
The test is not whether the employer did in fact control and direct the employee in the work, but it is whether the employer had that right under the employment contract. Consequently, whether a contract gives rise to a master-servant relationship depends on whether it grants a principal a right of control that is sufficient to create such a relationship under the applicable legal standards, not merely on whether the contract says there is or is not such a relationship.
The Georgia appellate court stated that the “Physician Services Agreement” (“PSA”) with WHS and WMG “do not show that WHS controlled how the doctors exercised their professional judgment in treating patients (including Lewis) and/or dictated which tools they should use and procedures they should follow … the plaintiffs identify no specific policy provisions requiring the doctors to provide such care in accordance with those policies in all instances … The PSAs thus do not show that WHS employed Drs. Syed and Wanasika … Because none of the evidence on which the plaintiffs rely directly contradicts WHS’s evidence that WMG — and not WHS — employed Drs. Syed and Wanasika, the trial court did not err when it granted summary judgment to WHS as to the plaintiffs’ vicarious liability claims.”
Source Lewis v. Wellstar Health System, Inc., A26A0119.
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