Turner v. United States
Turner v. United States
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff Faye Turner is the sister and guardian of John Johnson, whose September 19, 2007, surgery at the Edward Hines, Jr., VA Hospital (“Hines” or “the VA”) gave rise to this lawsuit. Plaintiff alleges that Dr. Hanna, an anesthesiologist employed by both the VA and Loyola,
Plaintiff explains her theory of Loyola’s liability for Dr. Hanna’s acts in these terms: “In the context of this case, the issue raised is whether Dr. Hanna was acting as actual or implied agent of Loyola at the time she provided care to Mr. Johnson at the VA hospital on September 19, 2007.” Pl.’s Opp. at 4.
It is telling, at the outset, that the case on which plaintiff relies most heavily to support her theory of agency actually rejected that theory. In Buckholtz v. MacNeal Hospital, 337 Ill.App.3d 163, 271 Ill.Dec. 511, 785 N.E.2d 162 (Ill.App.Ct. 2003), the Illinois Appellate Court held that the defendant hospital was entitled to judgment notwithstanding the jury’s verdict for the plaintiff on the ground that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support a finding that the physicians in the case acted as the hospital’s actual (implied) agent.
Despite Buckholtz’s adverse conclusion, plaintiff puts the case at the center of her analysis (from which I can only infer that she was unable to marshal any authority actually adopting her agency theory on comparable facts), then insists that the
Plaintiff cites payroll forms and correspondence between Loyola and Dr. Hanna reflecting her employment at both Loyola and Hines (and ambiguous testimony by Dr. Hanna interpreting these documents)
. I refer to the Loyola defendants collectively as ''Loyola.”
. As I explained in my March 31, 2010, opinion in this case, the study, titled "Awake Tracheal Intubation in Anticipated Difficult Airways: Fastrich v. Flexible Bronchoscope,” investigated two procedures for placing a breathing tube in a patient’s windpipe while
. I take this statement to mean that plaintiff is proceeding only on the theory of actual authority, see Petrovich v. Share Health Plan of Illinois, Inc., 188 Ill.2d 17, 241 Ill.Dec. 627, 719 N.E.2d 756, 770 (1999) ("Implied authority is actual authority, circumstantially proved"), as opposed to the theory of apparent authority, under which "a principal will be bound not only by the authority that it actually gives to another, but also by the authority that it appears to give.” Id., 241 Ill.Dec. 627, 719 N.E.2d at 765..
. The Buckholtz court noted, as a preliminary matter, that "[a]lthough the question of whether an agency relationship exists is a question of fact, a court may decide this issue as a matter of law if only one conclusion may be drawn from the undisputed facts.” Id., 271 Ill.Dec. 511, 785 N.E.2d at 170. The court went on to make clear that the burden of proving agency lies with the party seeking to impute liability to the alleged principal-in this case, plaintiff. Id.
. Plaintiff relies on Dr. Hanna's response to a question about the meaning of the designation, "prorated VA annual salary,” "it means I get half the salary I got from Loyola.” Pl.’s SOF, Exh. A at 242:18-19. It is not entirely clear what plaintiff believes this answer proves, but in any event, Dr. Hanna's ambiguous statement cannot reasonably be deemed to controvert her unequivocal testimony elsewhere that she was acting exclusively as an employee of Hines for the duration of her work on Mr. Johnson's surgery. E.g., id. at 229:9-16 ("I am purely hired by Hines. I am an employee ... I’m not there representing Loyola, I'm hired by the VA in the Anesthesia Department.”); 244:4-7 (“I’m telling you I worked in the VA during the time of John Johnson’s case. I worked for the VA. I had nothing to do with Loyola.”); 238:10-19 ("Q: Does Loyola [ ] pay you a full-time salary? A: half-time. Q: And the other half is paid by Hines? A: The other half-it's a completely different package, actually. It’s a different package altogether. So it's not half and half. It's half of the Loyola full-time salary and half of the VA full-time salary.”).
. This evidence includes undisputed evidence that Dr. Hanna's work as an anesthesiologist at Hines was supervised by Dr. Raj Uppal, the Chief of Anesthesiology at the VA, and that her work at the VA is subject to the VA’s policies and procedures, and that Loyola does not have any policies, procedures, or standards in place regarding the treatment of patients at Hines. Moreover, it is undisputed that Dr. Hanna submitted separate research protocols to the respective Institutional Review Boards of the two institutions to obtain permission to conduct the clinical research project in which Mr. Johnson participated, and that Loyola had no role in the approval of the protocol Dr. Hanna submitted to the VA.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Faye TURNER, Plenary Guardian of the Estate and Person of John Johnson, a Disabled Person v. UNITED STATES of America, Loyola University Medical Center, and Loyola University Health System
- Status
- Published