C074810Whitlow

The trial court granted defendant Rideout Memorial Hospital’s motion for summary judgment, finding that, as a matter of law, the emergency room physician who failed to diagnose and treat decedent’s brain hemorrhage was not an ostensible agent of the hospital. On appeal, the surviving children argue that, despite the hospital’s boilerplate admissions form and signage stating the emergency room physicians are independent contractors, they have presented triable issues of material fact whether their mother entrusted herself to the hospital, whether the hospital selected the physician, whether their mother reasonably believed the doctor was an agent of the hospital, and whether the form and signage could give notice at a meaningful time in a meaningful manner of the employment status of the emergency room physician to a patient suffering acute pain. Based on analogous cases in California and around the country, we agree and reverse the summary judgment of the children’s wrongful death action.

FACTS

Decedent’s son, Dean Whitlow, submitted a declaration in opposition to the hospital’s motion for summary judgment in which he described his mother’s condition in the early…