Ross v. Chatham County Hospital Authority

Clarke, Presiding Justice.

In this case we consider the “borrowed servant” rule in the context of a medical malpractice during a surgical procedure in a hospital operating room. We must decide under what circumstances the hospital employee assisting in the procedure becomes the employee of the surgeon so as to impute the negligence of the employee to the surgeon under the rule of respondeat superior.

Ross, the plaintiff in this case, sued the surgeon and the Chat-ham County Hospital Authority for malpractice on account of an instrument’s being left in his abdomen during surgery. The hospital…