Hospital Liable For Negligence Of Independent Physicians: After Latisha Gradia went into cardiac arrest at her home in 2021, she was transported by ambulance and arrived comatose to Santa Rosa Medical Center (SRMC). After several hours in the emergency department at SRMC, Gradia’s treating physician arranged to have her transferred to Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, a Level II trauma center, because of its higher-level ability to give appropriate care. Once Gradia arrived at Baptist Hospital (she was still comatose), the treating physician in Baptist Hospital’s emergency department decided not to induce therapeutic hypothermia.
Gradia filed a Florida medical malpractice lawsuit on her behalf and on behalf of her two minor children in which she alleged that decision of the emergency department physician not to initiate therapeutic hypothermia was a breach of the prevailing standard of care that left her with permanent brain damage and complete disability. Baptist Hospital argued that Pensacola Emergency Physicians, LLC (PEP) operated its emergency department as an independent contractor with no employer/employee relationships created between it and the physicians employed by PEP. The trial court agreed with the defendant hospital and granted summary judgment on the agency-based, vicarious liability claims, as well as on the nondelegable duty claim.
In its opinion dated August 10, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal State of Florida (“Florida Appellate Court”) stated: “In this case, Baptist Hospital’s Emergency Services Agreement with PEP to operate the emergency department cuts both ways in the parties’ agency dispute over the Hospital’s right of control. On one hand, the Agreement states that PEP is an independent contractor and that “[n]o relationship of employer and employee is created by this agreement.” It provides that PEP and not the Hospital is “responsible for the acts of its agents, employees, and subcontractors while engaged in the performance of services herein.” But, on the other hand, the Agreement gives Baptist Hospital ultimate control over emergency department personnel and the methods and practices employed by emergency room physicians. Although the Agreement states that physicians provide emergency services according to their own means and methods of work, it also provides that “the overall authority and responsibility for policy, administration and executive control matters relating to the operation of the Emergency Department and the Emergency Services shall remain with the Hospital.””
“Beyond the Hospital’s Agreement with PEP, the record also indicates that the Hospital adopted and maintained medical practices protocols or guidelines used by emergency department physicians to decide whether to induce hypothermia for neurologically compromised patients, the treatment alleged to have been withheld from Gradia. Hard copies of the Hospital’s protocol were kept in the trauma rooms. And the treating physician in Gradia’s case acknowledged consulting the protocol in course of determining her treatment. This protocol, which gave the Hospital a voice in the details of the physician’s emergency treatment decision, lends additional support to Appellants’ vicarious liability claims. Based on the terms of the Hospital-PEP Agreement and the Hospital-protocol evidence, we conclude that a genuine dispute remains about the Hospital’s supervision and right of control over the emergency treating physician, which entitles Appellants to a trial.”
Gardia v. Baptist Hospital., Inc., No. 1D21-1560.
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