HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) – Hospitals have avoided a theory of liability pushed recently in Connecticut that sought to hold them accountable for defective products used in medical procedures.
The state Supreme Court recently ruled for Bristol Hospital in a lawsuit brought by Debra Normandy, who filed a products liability lawsuit over a mesh sling implanted in her to treat stress urinary incontinence.
The lawsuit sought to consider Bristol Hospital a seller of the sling, which caused mesh exposure and was removed, because it paid $900 for it then charged Normandy’s insurance carrier $4,230.
The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms summary judgment for the hospital. It says other states that have addressed the question have held hospitals are service providers rather than product sellers.
Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote a 1989 decision from a Texas appeals court was “particularly illustrative.” The ruling shielded a hospital from products liability in a case over an epidural kit and said the “’sale’ of the epidural kit was integrally related to the medical procedure – the kit was not a separate good sold in a commercial transaction.”
“Furthermore,” Robinson added, “the fact that the defendant billed the plaintiff far more than it paid for the Monarc mesh sling, and potentially may have profited from providing the product, does not by itself render the defendant a product seller under the product liability act.
“Indeed, given the nature of the services provided by hospitals, often in emergency situations, that a hospital keeps medical supplies on its shelves ready for use does not, without more, render it a product seller.”