Settle v. Basinger (Summary)

VICARIOUS LIABILITY

Settle v. Basinger, No. 11 CA 1342 (Colo. Ct. App. Feb. 28, 2013)

The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s grants of summary judgment and trial verdicts in favor of an emergency department physician and her employer hospital.

In the case, a patient presented at the hospital’s emergency department with severe injuries from a vehicle accident.  The physician stabilized the patient and then arranged for him to be transferred to another hospital.  The receiving hospital arranged for the patient to be transported by a third party.  The third party’s nurses arrived at the hospital and attempted to intubate the patient.  These attempts allegedly caused tracheal lacerations that required multiple surgeries to repair.

The patient sued the emergency department physician, her employer hospital, the third-party transportation company, and the transportation company’s nurses that had attempted to intubate him.  In the complaint, the patient alleged that the transportation nurses had inflicted the tracheal lacerations and that their improper intubation of him had been caused by the emergency department physician’s negligent failure to examine, observe, treat, and administer the medical care given to the patient.  All of these allegations failed either at summary judgment or with a negative jury verdict.

The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s grants of summary judgment and jury verdicts.  The court based its conclusions on its holding that the patient had failed to allege facts that could have led the court to find that the emergency department owed a duty to supervise the third-party nurses when they attempted intubation.  Furthermore, the court endorsed the trial court’s reasoning that the emergency department physician was not vicariously liable for the negligent intubation because the captain of the ship doctrine does not render an emergency room physician vicariously liable for negligent acts committed in the emergency room by non-hospital employees.  Finally, the court affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment against the patient’s allegation that the employer hospital had negligently credentialed the emergency department physician.  Because the court concluded that the patient had failed to allege a causal connection between the alleged negligent credentialing (of the physician) and the negligent intubation (by the third-party nurses), the court affirmed the summary judgment against the negligent credentialing claim.  Accordingly, the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s holdings and verdicts.