Stevens

This proceeding in mandate presents the question whether a cause of action for fraud and deceit against a hospital is pleaded by factual allegations that the hospital intentionally concealed from the plaintiff and all other patients that foreign physicians, unlicensed to practice medicine in California, were authorized by the hospital to function as hospital staff physicians and surgeons on a daily basis without the supervision required by statute.

For the reasons discussed hereafter, we conclude that such alleged concealment of material fact and resulting injury may state a cause in actual fraud sufficient to overcome a general demurrer.

The material allegations of the operative third amended complaint are as follows: plaintiff submitted herself for a “C-section” surgical procedure in defendant hospital. The assistant surgeon (Chon) at the surgery was in fact a foreign nation physician who graduated from a foreign medical school and was unlicensed to practice medicine in California.

Chon had been participating at defendant hospital for four months in an educational fellowship specialty program authorized and regulated by Business and Professions Code section 2112. The…