It is familiar law that a hospital cannot be held vicariously liable for doctors who are not its employees, and that a hospital is not liable where a patient receives treatment from a private attending physician.1 Likewise, the mere “affiliation” of a doctor with a hospital or other medical facility, not amounting to employment, is not a sufficient basis for imputing the doctor’s negligent conduct to the hospital.2
A well-known exception to these general rules applies where a patient enters a hospital through its emergency room, seeking treatment from the hospital itself rather than any particular physician. This exception, known as the “Mduba” exception, was created over 30 years ago in Mduba v. Benedictine Hospital,3 where the Appellate Division declared that “[p]atients entering the hospital through the emergency room, could properly assume that the treating doctors and staff were acting on behalf of the hospital. Such patients are not bound by secret limitations as are contained in a private contract between the hospital and the doctor. Defendant held itself out to the public offering and rendering hospital services.”4
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