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Where (1) the defendant, an incorporated group of radiologists, entered into a contract to be the exclusive provider of radiology services for a hospital and (2) the defendant later was sued by a plaintiff whose husband was admitted to the hospital and allegedly died because the defendant’s services were not provided, a grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant must be reversed, as the defendant effectively agreed to act as the hospital’s radiology department and assumed the duty to provide medical treatment consistent with the standard of care in the practice of radiology.
“The defendant, Saint Vincent Radiological Associates, Inc. (SVRA), an incorporated group of radiologists, entered into a contract to be the exclusive provider of radiology services for Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester (Saint Vincent). In this appeal, we consider whether SVRA owed a duty of care in tort to the plaintiff’s deceased husband, Duane C. Brown (Brown), who was admitted to Saint Vincent in urgent need of SVRA’s services and allegedly died because those services were not provided. Concluding that the summary judgment materials were sufficient to establish that SVRA did owe Brown a duty of reasonable care, we reverse the summary judgment entered against the plaintiff on her negligence-based claims against SVRA. …
“The sole issue presented in this appeal is whether the plaintiff may proceed to trial against SVRA on tort theories of liability or whether, as a matter of law, those avenues of relief are foreclosed because SVRA owed no duty to Brown distinct from its contract with Saint Vincent. …
“SVRA argues that its only obligation to provide an on-call interventional radiologist was a contractual duty it owed to Saint Vincent, and that it owed no duty of care in tort to provide an on-call interventional radiologist for Brown, let alone to place a cholecystostomy tube. While SVRA may ultimately prevail at trial in proving that the relevant standard of care did not require it to have an interventional radiologist available to perform the procedure in question, it is not entitled to summary judgment on the ground that it owed no duty to Brown whatsoever. …
“Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, under SVRA’s contract with Saint Vincent, SVRA effectively agreed to act as Saint Vincent’s radiology department. Accordingly, it assumed the duty to provide medical treatment consistent with the standard of care in the practice of radiology. … That common-law duty included whatever duty the radiology department of an acute-care hospital with an emergency unit owes to the hospital’s patients. …
“… We have no difficulty concluding that a hospital with an emergency department owes a duty of reasonable care to patients admitted on an emergency basis. To the extent the standard of reasonable emergency care requires having certain radiology services available, and to the extent SVRA was required by contract to provide those services on behalf of Saint Vincent — both of which are contested issues for trial — SVRA owed a duty of care to patients to provide those services. The contract required SVRA to assume duties to Brown recognized at common law — no more, but no less. …
“There remain disputed issues of material fact regarding the extent of SVRA’s duty and whether it breached that duty. …
“We hold that SVRA had a duty to Brown that existed in tort in the performance of its contractually assumed duties. SVRA’s contract with Saint Vincent created a relationship between SVRA and Brown ‘by reason of which the law recognize[s] a duty of reasonable care in the performance of the obligation.’ … ‘A patient who goes to the emergency room, if conscious, is mostly concerned with getting care, not with untangling the contractual relationship between the hospital and the doctors who work there.’ …
“The order granting summary judgment on the plaintiff’s negligence claims is reversed. The case is remanded so that the plaintiff may proceed to trial on her negligence claims against SVRA.”
Brown v. Saint Vincent Radiological Associates, Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-099-24) (20 pages) (Massing, J.) The case was heard by J. Gavin Reardon Jr., J., on a motion for summary judgment, and a motion for reconsideration was considered by him. Kerry Paul Choi for the plaintiff; Megan Grew Pimentel for the defendant (Docket No. 23-P-771) (Oct. 24, 2024).
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