99 Wis. 2d 708, 301 N.W.2d 156 (Wis. 1981)
Johnson v. Misericordia Community Hospital is a landmark decision in hospital corporate negligence and medical malpractice.
Does a hospital owe a direct duty to exercise reasonable care in granting and retaining medical staff privileges, and can it be held liable for negligent credentialing where a proper investigation would have revealed information indicating the physician should not have been granted privileges?
A hospital has an independent duty to exercise reasonable care in the selection and retention of its medical staff. This includes complying with its bylaws and prevailing professional standards by conducting a reasonably thorough investigation of an applicant's training, experience, references, prior hospital affiliations, malpractice history, and any restrictions or disciplinary actions. Breach of this duty resulting in foreseeable patient injury constitutes negligent credentialing. Statutory peer-review privileges protect the proceedings and records of review organizations but do not bar discovery of the same underlying facts from original, non-privileged sources.
Yes. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed liability, holding that Misericordia owed a duty of reasonable care in credentialing and that sufficient evidence supported the jury's finding that the hospital's failure to investigate was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injuries. The court also held that peer-review confidentiality does not preclude discovery of information available from original sources independent of the review committee process.
Johnson v. Misericordia is foundational for the tort of negligent credentialing. It delineates the hospital's corporate duty to patients independent of vicarious liability for physicians and provides a roadmap for evaluating credentialing practices against bylaws and industry norms. The case also clarifies the scope of peer-review privilege, preserving confidentiality for committee deliberations while permitting discovery of underlying facts from original sources. For law students, Johnson illustrates how institutional standards and custom inform the legal duty, how causation can be proven in credentialing cases, and how evidentiary privileges interact with plaintiffs' proof burdens in medical negligence litigation.