Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Trial

Challenging hospitals that tolerate incompetent doctors: often, medical malpractice is not an isolated incident. What if a doctor has a history of incompetence that a hospital didn't investigate or chose to ignore? In such circumstances, a negligent-credentialing claim will amplify your client's case.

Article Excerpt
Although the process of granting or denying staff privileges to physicians may be routine, it can be a matter of life and death. For that reason, if a hospital negligently grants staff privileges to an incompetent physician, the hospital should be held accountable when the physician negligently injures a patient.

A claim of negligent credentialing is derived from the "corporate negligence," or "corporate liability," doctrine and can be an important theory of recovery in some medical malpractice cases. The claim is based on good common sense. In Insigna v. LaBella, the Florida Supreme Court followed the lead of dozens of other jurisdic tions in articulating the simplicity of the theory:

While the term "corporate negligence" may have a much broader connotation, we construe it here to mean that a hospital's liability is founded on the independent duty it owes to its patients. The public policy which justifies placing the expanded responsibility and duty of care on a hospital is based on the present-day view that a hospital is a multifaceted health care facility that should be responsible for proper medical treatment on its premises. This view is justified because the hospital is in a superior position to supervise and monitor physician performance and is, consequently. the only entity that can realistically provide quality control. [W]e find, as a matter of public policy, that hospitals are in the best position to protect their patients and, consequently, have an independent duty to select and retain competent independent physicians seeking staff privileges. We note that the hospital's liability extends only to the physician's conduct while rendering treatment to patients in the hospital and does not extend to his conduct beyond the hospital premises. [T]he hospital will only be responsible for the negligence of an independent physician when it has failed to exercise due care in the selection and retention of that physician on its staff. (1)

A trend of accountability has developed in many jurisdictions: 34 states have recognized the doctrine of corporate liability. (2) A minority have rejected it. (3)

Detailed pleadings

A lawsuit that alleges negligent credentialing faces a number of obstacles, from defense efforts to block discovery using the peer-review privilege to ultimately getting the evidence admitted. That is why a well-pleaded complaint is crucial to success. The elements of a negligent-credentialing claim are:

* The hospital had a duty to select and retain competent physicians seeking staff privileges.

* The hospital was negligent in granting staff privileges to the physician, by either failing to perform an adequate investigation or simply ignoring facts uncovered by its investigation.

* The incompetent physician was negligent in treating the patient and caused his or her injury.

* The incompetent physician's negligence took place at the hospital. (4)

The facts giving rise to the second element are generally inadmissible in a basic medical negligence suit because such evidence is prejudicial to the physician and sometimes irrelevant to whether he or she committed the medical negligence the plaintiff described. It is quite relevant, however, to whether the hospital should have credentialed the physician and placed its patients in danger.

It is therefore imperative that the complaint include specific, detailed, and well pleaded factual allegations demonstrating the physician's history of incompetence-a history that should have caused a denial or loss of staff privileges. Specific factual allegations of incompetence place the hospital's decision at issue and, in jurisdictions that...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!