On July 10, 2025, in a reported and precedential decision, the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a $182 million verdict against a corporate medical provider based purely on vicarious liability in Hagans v. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania et al. In Hagans, a patient sued a corporate hospital for medical malpractice arising from a cesarean section and consequent neurological injury to the newborn infant. This neurological injury allegedly resulted in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and a consequent lifetime need of medical care. On appeal, among other items, the corporate defendant challenged the verdict because the trial court erred in failing to ask the jury to determine the liability of any agent or employee of the corporate hospital. The corporate hospital argued that such a finding was a prerequisite for a finding of vicarious liability.
The Court started with stating that vicarious liability was a “policy-based allocation of risk” based not on the principal’s own negligence but the relationship the principal has with the agent. Additionally, the Hagans Court reviewed the Superior Court’s prior ruling in Sokolsky v. Eidelman, 93 A.3d 858, 864 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2014), which held that a pleading need not specifically allege or name the individual agents to recover against the principal on a negligence-based vicarious liability theory.
Additionally, the Court examined statements made by the hospital’s own counsel. Specifically, the trial court found that the hospital “embraced” its vicarious relationship with the individual physicians and that the hospital’s own discussion that the providers worked together as a “team” to provide quality medical care to the patients. Consistent with the hospital’s statement about the “team,” the patient’s counsel demonstrated negligence of the “team” through expert testimony and other evidence presented as part of the patient’s case in chief. The Hagans Court agreed with the trial court’s assessment that the trial court’s assessment that both the patient and the hospital presented the hospital’s agents as a “team” and that the hospital’s agents acted negligently. Although the jury did not make an express finding to each individual agent of the hospital, such an express finding was not necessary to sustain liability against the principal.
The Hagans decision can be found here.
For additional questions, please contact Conrad James Benedetto, Esq. and/or Christopher Regan, Esq.
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