In a previous post I discussed negligent credentialing, a theory of recovery that enables a patient to hold a hospital liable for injuries caused by an independent contractor physician. This is not vicarious liability – that is, the hospital is not liable for the physician’s negligence merely because the physician breached the standard of care in a particular case. Rather, the hospital is directly liable for its own negligence if the physician is so manifestly incompetent or unqualified that the hospital should not have given him or her staff privileges, because in those circumstances it
