Opinion ID: 602861
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Independent Contractor Physician

Text: 14 It is elementary that '[t]he United States, as sovereign, is immune from suits save as it consents to be sued ... and the terms of its consent to be sued in any court define that court's jurisdiction to entertain the suit.'  2 The United States has statutorily consented to suits pursuant to the terms of the Federal Tort Claims Act. 3 This consent to be sued, though, does not extend to the acts of independent contractors. 4 15 The Supreme Court has noted that Congress left the courts free to define the term contractor. 5 A critical factor in identifying a contractor is the power of the Federal Government 'to control the detailed physical performance of the contractor.'  6 16 The Broussards characterize the Supreme Court's test for independent contractor status as a strict control test, in which control over the detailed physical performance is the sole consideration. They argue that the district court should not have relied on the strict control test: As physicians have an ethical obligation of independence, they can never be subject to such a degree of control; therefore, under such a restrictive test they will almost always be found to be independent contractors. 17 The Broussards do not state what the test for an independent contractor physician should be, but they imply that it should be some form of modified control test. They rely on one case each from the Seventh and Tenth Circuits as suggesting the appropriateness of such a test. 7 But we do not read these cases as supporting the establishment of any radically different test for determining when professionals are independent contractors. 18 In Quilico v. Kaplan, 8 the plaintiffs sought to establish that the defendant physicians--who were temporary employees of the Veterans Administration--were independent contractors rather than employees who would be statutorily immune from personal liability. In order to establish that the physicians were independent contractors, the plaintiffs urged the court to follow the strict control test to determine the physicians' status. The Seventh Circuit acknowledged that under the strict control test, the physicians would not be employees, but neither would any other physician employed by the Veterans Administration regardless of the permanency or terms of their employment. 9 The Quilico court found that such a result would conflict with Congress's intent in statutorily providing immunity for physicians employed both permanently and temporarily by the Veterans Administration. 10 The court consequently rejected the strict control test for purposes of the determining the scope of immunity for Veterans Administration physicians, 11 and instead relied on the relevant statutory definition of employees who were to be immunized from liability. 12 19 In Lurch v. United States, 13 the Tenth Circuit questioned the use of a strict control test in determining whether a physician is an independent contractor. 14 The plaintiff in Lurch argued that the court should adopt a modified control test in which the areas of medical service that are susceptible to supervision and control should be considered in determining if a physician is a federal employee. 15 The Lurch court found that it need not decide that issue, however, because the contractual arrangement and its application to the physician clearly established that he was not in an employer-employee relationship with the United States. 16 20 Apart from the fact that the Seventh and Tenth Circuits have implicitly disapproved of a rigid control test for determining when a given professional is a government employee, we are not certain that such an inflexible test has ever been mandated by the Supreme Court. As those two circuits (and the Broussards) have noted, if such an absolute strict control test were mandated, no professional who is required by a code of ethics to exercise professional judgment could ever be considered an employee of the United States for FTCA purposes. 21 We believe that a more significant observation is that, even though control of the detailed physical performance of the actor may be the most critical factor in identifying an employee, it is not necessarily the only factor. A critical element in distinguishing an agency from a contractor is the power of the Federal Government 'to control the detailed physical performance of the contractor.'  17 In seeking to distinguish between an employee and an independent contractor, the Supreme Court in Logue v. United States 18 relied on § 2 of the Restatement (Second) of Agency. 19 That section defines an independent contractor as a person who contracts with another to do something for him but who is not controlled by the other nor subject to the other's right to control with respect to his physical conduct in the performance of the undertaking. 20 The comments to this section expand on this definition: Although for brevity the definitions in this Section refer only to the control or right to control the physical conduct of the servant, there are many factors which are considered by the courts in defining the relation. 21 22 We find the present situation to be analogous to that in Lurch: We need not define the outer limits of the test to determine when a physician is an independent contractor because on the undisputed facts here, the contractual arrangement itself and its application placed [the E.R. Physician] outside of the parameters of an employer-employee relationship with the Government. 22 Unquestionably, the United States did not have a traditional employer-employee relationship with him. He was neither hired nor paid by the United States. Instead, the United States had a contract with EMSA to provide the services of physicians to staff the Hospital's emergency room. Under the terms of this contract, EMSA assumed full liability for the acts or omissions of its employees, agreed to indemnify the United States against all claims caused or contributed to by its employees, and agreed to carry liability insurance for its employees. The United States was only obligated to pay a contract price to EMSA; EMSA in turn was responsible for compensating the physician or physicians whose services it provided to the Hospital. Even though the contract did not expressly obligate EMSA to control and supervise the physicians whose services it supplied, the agreement did specify that EMSA was to provide those professional services as an independent contractor and that the United States would retain no control over those professional services. Under any reasonable test for distinguishing an employee from an independent contractor, EMSA would be defined as an independent contractor of the government and the E.R. Physician would be defined either as an employee of EMSA or its independent contractor. Either way, he comes within the independent contractor exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity so the United States cannot be held liable for his negligence.