Assignment 1: Medical Court Cases

Medical malpractice lawsuits are an extremely serious topic and have affected numerous patients, doctors, and hospitals across the country. Medical malpractice is defined as “improper, unskilled or negligent treatment of a patient by a physician, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional” (Medical malpractice, n.d.). If a doctor acts negligent and causes harm to a patient, malpractice lawsuits arise. Negligence is the concept of the liability concerning claims of medical malpractice, making this type of litigation part of tort law. Tort law provides that one person may litigate negligence to recover damages for personal injury. Negligence laws are designed to deter careless behavior and also to

Failure to satisfy the safe harbor does not mean that the ASC joint venture is necessarily illegal, but rather that it may be subject to scrutiny and prosecution. It is important to recognize that many ASCs with physician investors do not meet the safe Ambulatory surgery centers: While there is no immunity for “substantial compliance” (i.e., operating as close to the safe harbor as reasonable and practical), it is widely believed that ASC joint ventures that are appropriately structured and operated should have reasonably low risk under the Anti-kickback Statute, even if they do not come squarely within the safe harbor. This view is based, in part, on the only federal court case4 that analyzes the application of the Anti-kickback Statute to joint ventures. That court concluded that a physician’s ownership interest in a health care provider does not violate the Anti-kickback Statute so long as: n the return on investment is based on each physician’s ownership interest and not their referrals, n eligibility to invest does not depend on an agreement to refer, n the size of the investment is not based on referrals, and n physicians who do not refer are not required or pressured to

Many believe that liability is a biggest issue in a general partnership than in a sole proprietorship. The owners of the company are still fully liable for any debts the company may accrue as well as the liability for any lawsuits that may be brought against the company. However, the bigger issue in a partnership is that now each partner can be liable for the other partner’s actions. If one partner is sued for malpractice, the other partner may suffer because of it.

The plaintiffs, A. V. Blount, Jr., Walter J. Hughes, Norman N. Jones, Girardeau Alexander, E. C. Noel, III, and F. E. Davis, are medical doctors (practitioners) licensed to practice and practicing medicine in the City of Greensboro, North Carolina.

When considering the legalities of this scenario, negligence, vicarious liability, and physician- patient relationship are a few components that affect the outcome of a lawsuit. The amount of legal torts that were violated in this case was enough to cause disputes between patients and healthcare staff. Negligence is a familiar tort that occurs much more than it needs too. Unfortunately in this case, vicarious liability and patient-physician relationship are two considerations that influence this case as well.

A limited liability company protects each partner from personal liability for certain obligations of the company. An important difference from other partnerships is that each partner is liable for the debts and obligations of the partners. With limited liability Company, each state has its own laws governing partners for these vessels. Some states allow only certain professions, such as lawyers and accountants to form LLP. Some states only provide protection from liability for negligence claims, leaving personally responsible for other types of requests partner. For tax purposes, profits are divided equally between the partners and the partnership is not taxed separately.

Tinker & Tailor’s Home Security Service: “The limited partnership form of business organization was primarily created to address one of the worst shortcomings of the traditional partnership form: unlimited personal liability for financial obligations incurred by the partnership” (Seaquist, 2012). Those involved in a limited partnership are in a unique situation in that they are only legally responsible for their investment in the partnership

This case is extremely relevant to what is known as the four D’s of negligence; duty, dereliction, direct cause and damages. Duty is when a doctor and a patient have formed a relationship and said doctor has taken on the responsibility of taking care of the patient. Dereliction or failure to perform a duty, there must be some kind of proof that the doctor somehow neglected the doctor neglected the patient. Direct cause, there must be some kind of proof that what happened to the patient was a direct cause of how the doctor conducted himself or his failure to act which resulted in injury. Damages a patient must prove that harm was incurred by the direct result of the physicians actions.

A health care provider must understand many aspects of statutory duty. Duty is “a legal obligation imposed on one to conform to a recognized standard of care to safe guard the rights of others”. The standard of care is usually related to medical malpractice cases. Standard of care is defined as “the caution and prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances or by appropriate authority for such situations”. This is mainly of importance because all physicians are expected to perform within the guidelines of this duty, and this standard or care changes depending on the circumstances. “Once the duty has been established, the plaintiff must show that it was breached by presenting evidence of the facts of the case and testimony from expert witnesses regarding whether the standard was met”(Showalter, 2014 p 139). Negligence results in the failure to meet this standard of care, and the jury usually decides if the defendant is guilty of committing a negligent act. Causation is an aspect of negligence. The defendant could be held liable for negligence if the act was considered to be foreseeable, and if the injury occurred from a breach of duty.

The hospital and physician were both found to be negligent. Elements of negligence are (injuryclaimcoach, 2017):

Partnership liability tort can take place when a partner or all partners acting on partnership business causes injury to a third person. Cause of this tort could be a negligent act, a breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, fraud, or another intentional tort (Cheeseman, 2010, p. 538). Under the Uniform Partnership Act, partners are jointly and severally liable for torts and breaches of trust (UPA, 2010). This is true even if the co-partner(s) did not participate in the act. The joint and severally liable tort permits a third party to sue one or more of the partners

According to Chief Justice Phillips’s opinion, the plaintiff, Sampson, needed to raise “a genuine issue of material fact that defendant Hospital was vicariously liable under the theory of ostensible agency for an emergency room physician’s negligence.” For that reason, we grant the BMHS’s request for writ of error due to the failure that the plaintiff was unable to establish vicarious liability based on the facts that the hospital had taken the reasonable and necessary steps to show its patients that the practicing physicians at the hospital were not employees or agents of the hospital (Phillips, 1997).

The first legal consideration in this case is related to corporate liability. The hospital itself is negligent under this doctrine. Corporate negligence is the failure to provide the equipment, facilities, and staff to carry out the duties of the corporation in accordance with the established standard of conduct (Showalter, 2007). Corporate negligence is evident in this case in regard to the failure to ensure that sufficient healthcare personnel were available to provide the established standard of care to the patients in the facility. Moreover, the personnel that were required to remain at the hospital from the day shift were likely

Limited liability partnership (LLP): Owners are not liable for debts, obligations or other liabilities of the partnership which are a direct result of negligence, wrong acts or malpractice of an agent, employee or partner of this partnership (Bhattacharyya. A.K., 2011, p.5). However, a partner will still be liable for negligence, wrong acts or malpractice conducted by an agent, employee or partner who is under his / her direct supervision.

In my opinion, the charges should have been dismissed against the individuals that pleaded guilty through plea bargain. The reason is that the lawsuit was able to illustrate that the prosecutor was racially motivated to incarcerated American Americans, even if they were innocent. Secondly, there was no strong evidence introduced that would uphold a conviction. The tape recordings that they had were alleged to drug transition occurring, however, you could not hear anything but noise in the background. In addition, the credibility of the confidential informant was questioned, because his stories was switching back and forth indicating that it was possibly fabricated. Lastly, the military drug sweep was achieved unlawfully without the use of