Court Opinion

ID: 9931480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 06:05:00.048742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:59.647883
License: Public Domain

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
                   revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

                           STATE OF MICHIGAN

                              COURT OF APPEALS

KEEGAN MAITLAND, by next friend MEGHAN                              UNPUBLISHED
MAITLAND,                                                           February 8, 2024

                Plaintiff-Appellee,

v                                                                   No. 348216
                                                                    Genesee Circuit Court
HOLLY JASKIERNY, D.O., and JOSEPH                                   LC No. 18-110537-NH
KINGSBURY, D.O.,

                Defendants,

and

GENESYS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER,

                Defendant-Appellant.

Before: REDFORD, P.J., and MARKEY and BORRELLO, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

                                          ON REMAND

       In lieu of granting leave to appeal, our Supreme Court vacated Part III of this Court’s
judgment and remanded this case for our reconsideration in light of the Court’s recent decision in
Markel v William Beaumont Hosp, 510 Mich 1071; 982 NW2d 151 (2022), of the issue whether
Dr. Jaskierny acted as an ostensible agent of Genesys Regional Medical Center (Genesys) when
she provided the alleged negligent medical services on March 15, 2012. In all other respects, the
Court denied leave to appeal because it was not persuaded that the remaining questions required
review.1

1
    Maitland v Jaskierny, ___ Mich ___; 996 NW2d 480 (2023).

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        We incorporate by reference the facts stated in our previous opinion.2 In that opinion, we
concluded that, under Grewe v Mt Clemens Gen Hosp, 404 Mich 240; 273 NW2d 429 (1978), and
this Court’s caselaw, plaintiff failed to establish that Dr. Jaskierny was an ostensible agent of
Genesys because no evidence demonstrated that Genesys committed any act or omission that
caused plaintiff to believe that Dr. Jaskierny was Genesys’s agent or employee. Indeed, as
explained in our previous opinion, the evidence undermined all of the bases on which plaintiff
relied and she could not point to any act or omission by Genesys that could have caused her to
reasonably believe that Dr. Jaskierny served as Genesys’s ostensible agent.

       In Markel, 510 Mich at 1071, a medical malpractice case brought by a patient who obtained
hospital emergency room care from a hospitalist and sued the hospital for the alleged negligence
of the hospitalist on a theory of vicarious liability based upon ostensible agency, our Supreme
Court clarified the ostensible agency doctrine. The Court stated the test for establishing ostensible
agency as follows:

       [First] The person dealing with the agent must do so with belief in the agent’s
       authority and this belief must be a reasonable one; [second] such belief must be
       generated by some act or neglect of the principal sought to be charged; [third] and
       the third person relying on the agent’s apparent authority must not be guilty of
       negligence. [Markel, 510 Mich at ___; slip op at 1, quoting Grewe v Mt Clemens
       Gen Hosp, 404 Mich 240, 253; 273 NW2d 429 (1978) (quotation marks and
       citations omitted; alterations in original).]

        Our Supreme Court explained that the patient in Grewe had no preexisting patient-
physician relationship with the treating physician. The patient apparently merely showed up
seeking emergent care. Our Supreme Court quoted the proposition that, for determining ostensible
agency, “the critical question is whether the plaintiff, at the time of his admission to the hospital,
was looking to the hospital for treatment of his physical ailments or merely viewed the hospital as
the situs where his physician would treat him for his problems.” Markel, 510 Mich at 1071,
quoting Grewe, 404 Mich at 251. Our Supreme Court noted that in Grewe, 404 Mich at 253-255,
it found significant that nothing put the patient on notice, or should have, that the doctor was an
independent contractor and not an employee of the hospital. Markel, 510 Mich at 1071. Our
Supreme Court explained:

       A patient who has clear notice of a treating physician’s employment status or who
       has a preexisting relationship with a physician outside of the hospital setting cannot
       reasonably assume that the same physician is an employee of the hospital merely
       because treatment is provided within a hospital. Id.

                                               * * *

       The rule from Grewe is that when a patient presents for treatment at a hospital
       emergency room and is treated during their hospital stay by a doctor with whom

2
 See Maitland v Jaskierny, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals issued July 8,
2021 (Docket No. 348216).

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       they have no prior relationship, a belief that the doctor is the hospital’s agent is
       reasonable unless the hospital does something to dispel that belief. Put another
       way, the “act or neglect” of the hospital is operating an emergency room staffed
       with doctors with whom the patient, presenting themselves for treatment, has no
       prior relationship. Markel, 510 Mich at 1071-1072.

                                               * * *

       [A] core aspect of our holding in Grewe was that an agency is ostensible when the
       principal intentionally or by want of ordinary care, causes a third person to believe
       another to be his agent who is not really employed by him. Markel, 510 Mich at
       1072 (quotation marks, alterations, and citation omitted).

                                               * * *

       [Grewe] held that when a patient presents at the emergency room for treatment, the
       patient’s belief that a doctor is the hospital’s agent is reasonable unless dispelled in
       some manner by the hospital or the treating physician. Markel, 510 Mich at 1072.

         With this clarification of the law of ostensible agency in mind, we now turn again to the
facts of this case and reconsider whether Genesys may be held vicariously liable for the underlying
alleged medical malpractice by Dr. Jaskierny on the theory of ostensible agency. The record
reflects that Joseph A. Kingsbury, DO, PC (Kingsbury PC) employed Dr. Jaskierny in private
practice and she had hospital privileges at and worked for Genesys part time. Plaintiff Meghan
Maitland testified that she found Dr. Jaskierny on her insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield’s website in
a list of doctors from which she concluded that Dr. Jaskierny was a “Genesys doctor.” The record
also indicates that Dr. Jaskierny provided prenatal care at the Kingsbury PC offices within
Genesys’s medical office building. Since 2006, Dr. Jaskierny had an office in the suite leased by
Kingsbury PC. Although she had a Genesys badge, Dr. Jaskierny testified that, at times relevant
to this case, she usually left it in her car because she used it to enter the parking lot and probably
did not wear it from July 1, 2011 through March 15, 2012. She only started wearing it later when
accessibility to certain parts of the hospital became an issue.

        When Meghan went into labor she called Dr. Jaskierny’s office to let her know. Meghan
went to the hospital for her baby’s delivery, she signed a consent form that identified Dr. Jaskierny
as her private physician. Dr. Kingsbury performed the baby’s delivery because he was on call.
Later, the baby suffered serious complications. Plaintiff attributes the child’s condition to Dr.
Jaskierny’s alleged negligent prenatal care provided to Meghan. Plaintiff sued Dr. Jaskierny and
alleged that Genesys had vicarious liability for Dr. Jaskierny’s negligent medical treatment of
Meghan. Genesys defended on the grounds that Dr. Jaskierny was not its ostensible agent, actual
agent, or employee when she treated Meghan and committed the alleged malpractice. Genesys
moved for summary disposition under MCL 2.116(C)(10). The trial court denied the motion,
concluding that an issue of fact for trial existed regarding what plaintiff believed respecting agency
and whether her belief was reasonable. From that decision, Genesys appealed.

       In this case, unlike the plaintiffs in Grewe and Markel, Meghan had an established patient-
physician relationship with Dr. Jaskierny who provided her prenatal care at Kingsbury PC’s

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offices. Meghan did not merely go to Genesys and obtain medical services from a doctor there on
staff. She treated with Dr. Jaskierny for several months at the Kingsbury PC offices before the
alleged malpractice occurred. The record indicates that the alleged malpractice occurred at the
Kingsbury PC offices.

         Although the Kingsbury PC offices were in the Genesys facility, that fact alone does not
establish that Dr. Jaskierny provided medical services within the hospital setting as an ostensible
agent of Genesys. The concept of “hospital setting” is not and should not be interpreted so broadly
as to make a medical practice’s lease and use of office space in a hospital building or facility
dispositive of whether the medical practitioner was an agent, actual or ostensible, of the hospital.
Neither Markel nor Grewe stand for such a proposition. The concept of “hospital setting,” as
discussed in Markel and Grewe, relates to services performed on a patient who has been admitted
for treatment in the hospital, not merely a patient who obtained services within a building or facility
owned by the hospital. The “act or neglect” of the hospitals in Markel and Grewe consisted of
operating an emergency room staffed with doctors with whom the admitted patients had no
preexisting relationship. Markel and Grewe indicate that the preexisting patient-physician
relationship must focus on the relationship itself, when formed and where the services pertaining
to that relationship were provided. In this case, Meghan selected Dr. Jaskierny as her doctor from
a third party’s website. She made assumptions based on that website about the relationship
between Dr. Jaskierny and Genesys predominantly because of the location of Dr. Jaskierny’s
office, but admits that she obtained prenatal care at the Kingsbury PC offices for several months
before the alleged malpractice occurred related to a prenatal test performed at the Kingsbury PC
offices. Under Markel and Grewe, because Meghan had such a preexisting patient-physician
relationship, it is highly questionable that she could reasonably believe that Dr. Jaskierny was
Genesys’s agent. “A patient who has clear notice of a treating physician’s employment status or
who has a preexisting relationship with a physician outside of the hospital setting cannot
reasonably assume that the same physician is an employee of the hospital merely because treatment
is provided within a hospital.” Markel, 510 Mich at 1071. Under the circumstances presented in
this case, we are not persuaded that Genesys “intentionally or by want of ordinary care,” id. at
1072, caused Meghan to believe that Dr. Jaskierny was its agent, or had an affirmative duty to
dispel Meghan’s idiosyncratic belief that Dr. Jaskierny was an agent of Genesys.

        The record reflects that Genesys did not engage in any act or omission that led Meghan to
believe an agency relationship existed between Genesys and Dr. Jaskierny. Meghan selected Dr.
Jaskierny based on her search on Blue Cross Blue Shield’s website, not Genesys’s website.
Further, the location of Dr. Jaskierny’s office, without more, cannot establish that Meghan
reasonably believed that Dr. Jaskierny was Genesys’s agent. Nothing in the record indicates that
Genesys did anything on which Meghan relied to form her belief that Dr. Jaskierny was Genesys’s
agent. Kingsbury PC generated the prenatal care records, not Genesys. Meghan has not
established that she held a reasonable belief that Dr. Jaskierny was Genesys’s agent. The evidence
simply does not support such a conclusion nor does it present a question of fact for trial. The
record does not reveal any act or omission by Genesys that would have enabled Meghan to form a
reasonable belief that Dr. Jaskierny was Genesys’s agent. Plaintiff has failed to establish that
Genesys engaged in any act or omission that generated Meghan’s belief that Dr. Jaskierny was
Genesys’s agent, let alone a reasonable belief of such. The record in this case does not support a
finding of ostensible agency or a genuine issue of material fact for trial. Accordingly, the trial

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court erred by denying Genesys’s motion for summary disposition on the issues of Dr. Jaskierny’s
ostensible agency.

        For these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s order denying Genesys’s motion for summary
disposition and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not retain
jurisdiction.

                                                            /s/ James Robert Redford
                                                            /s/ Jane E. Markey
                                                            /s/ Stephen L. Borrello

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