Opinion ID: 2514015
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Extension of Jackson is unwarranted and unnecessary in this case.

Text: While Alaska regulations require general acute care hospitals to provide surgical services in addition to emergency services, [19] and while patients in operating rooms are as deserving of protection as Jackson's emergency room patients, extension of the non-delegable duty to the operating room is not warranted in this case. The Fletchers' situation does not fit within the narrow confines of our decision in Jackson. This is not a case of South Peninsula Hospital providing a physician to a patient who has come to the hospital for help. Fletcher went to South Peninsula to see Dr. Alvarez, to whom he was specifically referred. The non-delegable duty exception carved out in Jackson is limited to cases in which the patient looks to the hospital for care and the hospital selects the physician for the patient. [20] In Ward v. Lutheran Hospitals & Homes, [21] the only other case in which we addressed the application to hospitals of the theory of non-delegable duty, we concluded that the duty was inapplicable because Ward was treated at FMH's emergency room by her personal obstetrician, who was not a hospital employee. We repeated the Jackson holding that a hospital is always liable for a physician's negligence in the emergency room, unless the physician is an independent contractor selected by the patient. [22] Although Fletcher did not have a prior relationship with Dr. Alvarez, Fletcher went to see a specific physician and was looking to Dr. Alvarez for care, not to South Peninsula as an institution. Accordingly, extension of the theory of non-delegable duty in this case would be inappropriate. The Fletchers cite several cases in their briefs to show that other courts have extended the non-delegable duty outside the emergency room, but decisions from other jurisdictions do not support extension in this case. Some of the cases cited by the Fletchers do not deal with the issue of non-delegable duty at all. [23] Others do employ the language of non-delegable duty outside the emergency room context, but these cases are distinct from the present inquiry because they deal with direct liability for the hospital, not vicarious liability. [24] Those jurisdictions that have addressed the issue of extending a vicarious liability non-delegable duty outside the emergency room have either rejected such an application [25] or have taken the Jackson approach of limiting the non-delegable duty to situations in which a patient seeks services at the hospital as an institution and is treated by a physician that the patient did not select. [26] Again, in this case, Fletcher was referred to a specific physician and was looking to Dr. Alvarez for care, not to South Peninsula as an institution. Finally, the availability of other remedies makes extension of the non-delegable duty unnecessary in this case. We noted in Ward that the theories of non-delegable duty and apparent agency create liability in the emergency room under the same circumstances. [27] As South Peninsula points out, this demonstrates why such an extension is neither necessary nor justified. The two doctrines will cover the same circumstances in the emergency room; outside the emergency room, theories of apparent agency or apparent authority are still available. Therefore, although we decline to extend the theory of non-delegable duty under circumstances such as those in this case, future plaintiffs will not be left without legal remedy. [28]