Vicarious Liability in Healthcare Essay

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Corporate criminal liability can be stipulated under the Criminal code, where a person can be convicted of a crime so long as it has proven beyond a reasonable doubt and that he was in a guilty state of mind. (Geraghty 14). Within the context of criminal law, corporate criminal liability provides the limits within which a corporation, when regarded as a legal person, can be found liable for omissions and errors employed by natural persons. At times, corporate criminal liability is explained as a branch of the vicarious liability. This is when it is described allowing a distinction from the circumstance where a statutory offence. Under this condition, the wording evidently draws a connection between a corporation and a liability. The wording could further identify with the corporation specifically being identified as the joint principal (Gobert 18).

Vicarious liability applies to the ability to hold one accountable for the general misconduct of an agent in some form of collective or joint activities. For instance, the employer-employee relationship, the respondent superior doctrine holds that employers personally liable for the actions of their employees for negligence on their part. For instance, the under the Healthcare entities, hospitals may be held vicariously liable for the negligence of their Doctors who are under their scope of employment. (Killbert, 13) Under the respondent, superior doctrine, it became law in order to compensate parties that were injured in line of work by their employer i.e. hospitals can insurer their premises so as to compensate the injured parties other that their employees thus escaping liability for actions done on their behalf.

Where their negligent acts concerning health officials, their employer is illustrated an independent official thus they’re not vicariously liable hence, whether a party is a independent official or an employee generally depends on the means and manner which the party in question was to work under the said circumstances for example where the health plan does not control manner in which a Doctor treats his/her patient the principal will not be held liable for the negligent acts of the Doctor.

However, entities under the health care can be held liable for temporary employees. A good illustration of this is how surgeons can be held accountable for acts of their nurses who are under his/her management whether there actual staff or not. However, a Doctor cannot be held liable for the negligence of a Surgeon who acts on his own accord during surgery. “Ostensible” being agents can be held vicarious liable for negligence, this usual depends on whether the Surgeon in question does appear to the injured party as an agent to the health plan and it should be proved beyond reasonable doubt for example the public being presented with advertising materials showing that an injured party thought that the surgeon was an ostensible agent then they can impose vicarious liability on the health plan on the grounds that the Surgeon was negligent in his actions. (Killbert, 56.)

In determining whether an employee was acting in capacity in regard to his/her employment is important in determining whether the employer will be held vicarious liable for the acts hence in many healthcare amenities, hospitals are not held vicariously liable for acts that are considered not to be in the line of duty of the employee, for example when a patient is personal molested sexually by an employee the employer will not be sued vicariously.

Hence the employer must make sure the necessary measures are in place to provide for a competent workforce.

Apparent agency being where a health institution is held vicariously liable for negligence of his/her employees is only where there is an actual agency relationship between the later and the employer. Hence for a hospital to be liable, the plaintiff must prove that the manner in which the employee/ agent acted would make a reasonable man to construe that the person was negligent. Also the plaintiff must prove that the agent consisted with prudence and showed authority in that the hospital had the fore thought and acquiesced in them but incase the patient knows or ought to have known that the physician was an agent then vicarious liability will not be accepted.

The decision undermines the importance of clarity on consent forms those that are used by the hospitals hence they should state that the patient will be attended by an independent practitioner. This will defiantly reduce the standards of medical practices for example hospitals can make the independent medical practitioner wear lab coats without the hospital logo hence in the real sense there cannot be perfect compliance. (Gobert 11).

This in the actual sense makes for plaintiffs to sue against hospitals in vicarious liability claims to the extent of frustrating the medical practitioners’ because it’s a burden and it has led to more appropriate way in which one can build a case make it grounds to sue and that being the case it surly seems as downward trend to the standards that had been set down by the medical practitioners.

Works Cited

Geraghty, Martin. Corporate Criminal Liability. Vol. 39 American Criminal Law Review, 327, 2008.

Gobert, Joseph. Corporate Criminality: New Crimes for the Times. London: Oxford Publishers, 2010.

Killbert, Zachary. Basics of Managed Care Liability and HMO Malpractice. New York: CRC Publishers, 2007.

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