# Vattimo v. Lower Bucks Hospital, Inc.

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · September 28, 1983 · 502 Pa. 241

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9643710

## Case

- **Full name:** Charles VATTIMO and Doris Vattimo His Wife, on Their Own Behalf and Doris Vattimo, as Guardian Ad Litem for James Vattimo, an Incompetent, Appellee, v. LOWER BUCKS HOSPITAL, INC., Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** September 28, 1983
- **Citations:** 502 Pa. 241; 465 A.2d 1231; 1983 Pa. LEXIS 680
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Hutchinson
- **Judges:** Roberts, Nix, Larsen, Flaherty, McDermott, Hutchinson, Zappala
- **Cited by:** 156 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9643710

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that the right to indemnification resides in the party who “without active fault on his own part, has been compelled, by reason of some legal obligation, to pay damages occasioned by the initial negligence of another, and for which he himself is only secondarily liable…
- holding that where reasonable minds may differ, questions of causation are for the jury

## Opinion text

*255 HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
[1,2] I join Mr. Justice Flaherty’s opinion announcing the judgment of the Court in holding there can be no recovery, as a matter of policy, for these plaintiffs’ litigation related costs. Moreover, I also concur in his reversal of the grant of defendant’s demurrer to those portions of the complaint arguably seeking non-litigation related damages. If plaintiffs in fact seek, and can prove, aggravation of the incompetent plaintiff’s illness by virtue of the hospital’s negligence in not preventing him from setting the fire, recovery is available under well-settled principles, recognized by Mr. Justice Flaherty. However, if it is later determined, as suggested by Mr. Justice Nix in his concurring and dissenting opinion, that the only damages plaintiffs suffered as a result of the hospital’s negligence were related to the civil and criminal actions brought against their ward, I would deny recovery as a matter of law. I believe this is implied by the majority. On demurrer, however, I am unwilling to read the complaint as limited solely to damages flowing from the litigation.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9643710. Public record. Not legal advice.