Opinion ID: 150167
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Relationship Between Foster Care Agencies, Foster Parents, and Foster Children Under Pennsylvania Law

Text: The relationship between a foster care agency and a foster parent is unlike that of the typical master and servant. [24] Within the framework provided by the agency, foster parents are given considerable latitude in meeting the goals of each child's individual service plan. This is by design, as the Commonwealth requires placements that, as much as possible, replicate ... the traditional family setting[]. 55 Pa. Code § 3130.67(b)(7)(i). Implicit in the foster parent-foster child relationship is a level of parental autonomy that permits foster parents, on a daily basis, to adjust their care to the individualized needs of their foster child, just as biological parents would in a traditional family setting. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recently provided guidance in assessing relationships that are similarly individualized and dynamic. In Valles, the plaintiff brought a claim against a hospital premised ... upon a theory of vicarious liability for the battery committed by [the doctor] due to his failure to obtain informed consent prior to performing [an] aortogram. 805 A.2d at 1234. The plaintiff argued that, [b]ecause a hospital has an obligation to oversee all persons who practice medicine within its walls, ... [it] as an employer and health care provider in its own right maintains a right of control in the relationship sufficient to justify the imposition of liability. Id. at 1236. The Court affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the hospital, concluding that the relationship between it and a staff radiologist in the context of informed consent was not that of a master and its servant. This was despite the hospital exercising much control over the radiologist, including: its provision of the instrumentalities, place to work, support staff, patient base and wages; its right to require the employee's presence at a particular time[,] and to terminate his employment; its retention of revenues for the employee's professional services; and its use of departmental organization, peer review, rules and regulations, credentialing[,] and privileging practices. Id. at 1238. As the plaintiffs argued, the doctor's exercise of independent medical judgment was subject to [the hospital's] right of control because: his work may not be delegated to others ...; his medical findings must be reported in a manner ... set by hospital policy; and he must perform the requested study according to departmental protocols.... Id. The Court nonetheless declined to recognize a master-servant relationship, holding as a matter of law [that] a medical facility lacks the control over the manner in which the physician performs his duty to obtain informed consent so as to render the facility vicariously liable. Id. at 1239. It explained that a medical facility cannot maintain control over this aspect of the physician-patient relationship, since [i]nformed consent flows from the discussions each patient has with his physician, based on the facts and circumstances each case presents. Id. The baseline was that it would be improvident and unworkable to interject an element of a hospital's control into this highly individualized and dynamic relationship. Id. We conclude that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's analysis in Valles should apply equally to the relationship between a foster care agency and its foster parent. Given the highly individualized and dynamic adjustments that foster parents must make in fulfilling the ongoing obligations to their foster children, it would be similarly improvident and unworkable to interject an element of the [foster agency's] control into such a relationship. [25]