This medical malpractice case arises from an infant who presented at birth with jaundice. The infant's attending pediatrician, who was selected by the parents, was not employed by the hospital, but had clinical privileges to practice there. At the time of the jaundiced infant's discharge, the pediatrician orally advised the parents they could safely place the child at home in indirect sunlight. That advice indisputably conflicted with then-existing national standards of pediatric care and the hospital's own internal discharge policy.
The parents took the infant home, but the child's jaundice worsened. Three days later, the parents returned the infant to a different hospital, where it was discovered that the baby had sustained brain damage and cerebral palsy. The parents sued the attending pediatrician, the hospital, and the chair of the hospital's department of pediatrics for medical malpractice.
After plaintiffs settled with the pediatrician, plaintiffs pursued additional recovery from the hospital and the department chair. They stressed the hospital's by-laws specifically obligate its department chairs to maintain "continuing surveillance and oversight" of "all [p]ractitioners with [c]linical [p]rivileges and of all [a]ffiliates" at the hospital, and to "enforce" within their departments the hospital's "policies," "including initiating corrective actions and investigations of clinical performance." Plaintiffs also stressed deposition testimony that at least five other pediatricians at the hospital had been known to give similar discharge advice recommending treatment with indirect sunlight. The department chair testified at his deposition that he had been unaware of those instances.
The motion judge granted summary judgment to the codefendants, finding the chair had no notice of the attending physician's divergent discharge practices and that imposing liability in these circumstances would violate case law prohibitions on "captain of the ship" theories of liability.
This court affirms the dismissal of the claims against the department chair and hospital. Although the court does not agree that the "captain of the ship" prohibition bars plaintiffs' supervisory liability claims, summary judgment was proper because plaintiffs' expert failed to delineate with reasonable specificity the standards of care for supervisory liability that the department chair and the hospital allegedly breached.