“A hospital must clarify for its patients its relationship with a doctor only to the extent that the hospital or the doctor has affirmatively held out that the doctor is its agent or employee.”
How later courts described this case
- “A hospital must clarify for its patients its relationship with a doctor only to the extent that the hospital or the doctor has affirmatively held out that the doctor is its agent or employee.”
- A A hospital must clarify for its patients its relationship with a doctor only to the extent that the hospital or the doctor has affirmatively held out that the doctor is its agent or employee. @
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Dissenting Opinion by Justice GRANT.
GRANT, Justice,
dissenting.
The issue at stake in our courts is whether a hospital should make an effort to inform health care consumers whether they are being treated by someone for whom the hospital is responsible or an independent contractor for whom the hospital has no responsibility. These health care consumers, just like Dorothy Garrett, *658 go to the hospital for health care. Nothing informed Dorothy Garrett that the radiologist was not acting on behalf of the Hospital. The doctrine of apparent or ostensible agency should be applied to estop the hospital from disclaiming responsibility for the acts of the radiologist under the facts of this case.
The salient opinion in which the Texas Supreme Court spoke to these situations, and the opinion relied upon by the majority, is Baptist Mem’l Hosp. Sys. v. Sampson, 969 S.W.2d 945 (Tex.1998). In that case, the Supreme Court found there was no affirmative conduct by the hospital that would lead a reasonably prudent patient to believe that the treating emergency room physicians were hospital employees. There are circumstances in the present case from which apparent or ostensible agency could be inferred that did not exist in the Sampson case. The Supreme Court’s finding in the Sampson case was drawn from a totality of the circumstances as to whether there were facts that would support an affirmative act by the hospital. In that case, two factors existed that do not exist in the present case. In Sampson , the hospital had posted signs and required signatures on consent forms to disabuse the patients of the notion that the treating physicians were agents or employees of the hospital. In the present case, no effort was made by the hospital to inform patients that on-sight radiologists chosen by the hospital were not hospital agents or employees.
I read the Sampson case to hold that even though the hospital housed the radiologists and even though the hospital chose the radiologist for the patient, this was not an affirmative act because it was accompanied by efforts by the hospital with posted signs and consent forms separating radiologists’ conduct from that of the hospital. Without these acts by the hospital or some similar acts to inform the patients, I would hold that providing facilities within the hospital premises and designating the specific radiologist to handle the care would be sufficient to establish a finding of apparent or ostensible agency.
I respectfully dissent.