McConnell v. Williams

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Horace Stern,

Physicians and surgeons, like other persons, are subject to the law of agency, and one of them may be, either permanently or temporarily, in the service of another. The question in the present case is whether such a relationship existed between a hospital interne and defendant, a practicing surgeon, during the latter’s performance at the hospital of an obstetrical operation in the course of which the interne, by alleged negligence, injured the new-born child of the patient.

The facts—assuming plaintiff’s testimony to be true—are these: Mrs. Joseph K.…