Charitable Hospitals' Liability for Negligence: Abrogation of the Medical-administrative Distinction

DELIMITING the extent of a hospital's liability for the negligent acts of its doctors, nurses, and employees has, during the past half-century, proven to be a particularly perplexing judicial problem.' Principles based upon variant reasoning and indicating no small degree of confusion have been propounded, reflecting two largely incompatible influences: the theory that a charity should be favored by the law; and the theory that, like any legal entity, even a charitable institution has a duty to exercise due care in the course of its operations. Originally, virtual unanimity8 obtained in exempting charitable hospitals from respondeat superior liability, owing to the widespread following of McDonald v. Massachusetts General Hospital.4 To rationalize this position, the courts generally have adopted either a trust fund theory,5 an implied waiver theory,' a public-policy theory,7 or