Personal Injury Law

Pattern Of Abuse And Neglect At Sacramento Nursing Home, Part 16 of 20

By Moseley Collins, Esq.

It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this elder abuse case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Sutter, or any skilled nursing facility.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this wrongful death case and its proceedings.)

Since the Egan decision, numerous other cases have reenforced that the litmus test for determining a managing agent is the degree to which the corporation has delegated to the employee decision-making discretion in the employee's sphere of authority, not the employee's position in the corporate hierarchy and not the employee's ability to make corporate-wide policy. Agarwal v. Johnson, 25 Cal. 3d 932 (1979) (project manager who oversaw 20-25 employees in one office of an international company with 5,000 employees was a managing agent); Textron Financial Corp. v. National Union Fire Ins. of Pittsburgh, 118 Cal. App. 4th 1061 (2004) (third party agent vested with discretion in administering insurance corporation's commercial bus program a managing agent of the corporation for punitive damages purposes).

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

Plaintiffs maintain that numerous Universal employees were managing agents of Universal and the XYZ Corporate Defendants because such employees were delegated all of the critical patient care functions as to Ms. Hill such that they decided on behalf of these corporate entities the care that would be provided to Ms. Hill. They then set de facto policy regarding the nursing care to be provided to Ms. Hill and whether she would be transferred to the hospital to receive medical care for her broken hip.

In this case, defendants' managing agents included Director of Nurses Shelly Brown, Station 4 Nurse Supervisor Anne Smith, and Ms. Hill's charge nurses, among others. (See Part 17 of 20.)

Full post as published by Sacramento Injury Lawyer Blog on December 19, 2010 (boomark / email).