Vicarious Liability - Essay Example

Vicarious Liability Briefly discuss the terms vicarious liability and corporate liability. Vicarious liabilityentails a tort where a third party is held liable due to the negligence of another person for whom they have a special relationship. For example, an employer may be held liable for a tort committed by his/her employee (Anselmi, 2012). On the contrary, corporate liability involves a legal responsibility of a company due to criminal acts executed by its employers. Corporate liability focuses to determine the extent in which a company may be held liable for the criminal acts committed by a natural person employed by that company (Bright, 2008). 2. Identify the various mistakes in the case and indicate which type of liability might result.

The mistakes in this case can be observed in the part of the Mrs. Evans, a nurse at Baton Rouge General Hospital and Doctor Beskin and Stotler. The employees executed professional negligence that led to the death of a three month old Robyn Bernice Norton a daughter to Glynace H.Norton and Anne Graves Norton. Nurse Florence Evans failed to exercise the duty of reasonableness by injecting an overdose to a three month old child. As a registered Nurse with many years of experience, Mrs. Evans was supposed to be aware that Lanoxin was not supposed to be administered via injection.

In addition, despite being aware that the 3.00 cubic centimeters was an overdose to a three month child, she went ahead and injected the entire dose to a three month old child. This was the highest level of professional negligence. Therefore, this may result to both vicarious and corporate liability on the part of Baton Rouge General Hospital. This is because as an employer, Baton Rouge General Hospital was suppose to ensure that all its employees were competent enough but it failed to do so (Legal.com, 2013).

Further, Doctor Beskin executed a mistake of professional negligence as a doctor. It can be observed that after Mrs. Evans had consulted Doctor Beskin on whether hypodermic needle with Lanoxin was supposed to be administered via injection he failed to provide a professional advice as a doctor on duty. This indicates that Doctor Beskin was ignorant and careless despite being aware of the impact that Lanoxin could have if administered inappropriately. This further led to the death of Robyn Bernice Norton.

Therefore, the element of corporate liability can be observed in this case due harm the Baton Rouge General Hospital had caused to the patient through its employees (Legal.com, 2013). Another mistake can be observed through Doctor Stotler, despite being a professional doctor who understood the impact of giving an overdose, he recommended Mrs. Ann to increase the amount of Lanoxin she was giving to her child from 2.5.c.c to 3.00.c.c. In addition, Doctor Stotler failed to exercise a duty of reasonable care when diagnosing the child.

For example, he provided a wrong advice on how the drug was to be administered. In addition, the aspects of vicarious liability can be observed whereby, Aetna Casualty and Surety company a liability insurer of Doctor Stotler was liable to pay damages the plaintiff for a tort committed by their client (Legal.com, 2013). 3. As the facility administrator, chief of staff, or chief of nursing, what steps would you take to prevent this from happening again? : The first step will involve determining the appropriate therapy prior administering any drug to patient.

Secondly, training programs should be established to equip the medics with new skills that may help them to evaluate the patient prior administering any medication. Thirdly, nurses and doctors should be trained on the procedure of ordering and describing drugs. Fourthly, the drugs ordered should include: the patient name, dosage/quantity of drugs to be administered, frequency and all the relevant information for proper dosage. Fifthly, clear instruction on how to administer the drugs should be provided.

The person to administer the drugs and how the drugs will be taken should be provided. Finally, proper audit should be established to ensure that all medics adhere to code of ethics in their profession (Anselmi, 2012). 4. This case happened over 50 years ago. What safeguards are in place today to prevent these types of mistakes? The following are safeguards that should be followed to prevent these types of mistakes: safety culture should be built in Baton Rouge General Hospital, secondly proper direction and necessary support should be provided to the staff.

Risk management activity should be integrated to manage any risk that may arise. Clear reporting mechanisms should be established to enable the staffs to report incidents that are beyond their understanding. In addition, proper communication channels between patients and staff should be put forth. Finally, safety lessons should be learnt and shared among stakeholder. Finally, solutions should be implemented to prevent such hazards in the future (McGinnis, n.d.). 5. What does pretermitting mean?

Does it apply to this case? Pretermitting entails omitting/neglecting or disregarding intentionally it applies in this case under certain situation. For example, the nurses and doctor at Baton Rouge General Hospital neglected the rights of Robyn Bernice by administering to her an overdose of Lanoxin. In addition, they failed to exercise a duty of reasonable care by administering drugs via injection rather than orally. This was the highest level of intentional negligence that professional medics can execute towards their patients.

Conclusively, the term has been applied in this case to explain the disregard of the issue of charitable immunity (Legal.com, 2013). References Anselmi, K. (2012). Ethics, Law, and Policy. Nurses' Personal Liability vs. Employer's Vicarious Liability. MEDSURG Nursing, 21(1): 45-8. Bright, L. (2008). Death by corporate negligence. Nursing Older People, 20(4), 14. Giliker, P. (2011). Vicarious liability or liability for the acts of others in tort: A comparative perspective. Journal of European Tort Law, 2(1), 31-56. Legal.com. (2013). Norton v.

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