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Tatum v. Medical University of South Carolina5/3/1999
ause the employee was engaged in the very activity at the time of the injury that he was hired to perform. Thus, the employer owed the employee no additional duties.
The supreme court's decision in Johnson, 316 S.C. 70, 447 S.E.2d 184, offers a similar analysis. In Johnson, the employer owned a chemical processing plant and assumed the general contractor's role in constructing the plant after terminating the original general contractor. Once the plant was in operation, an employee suffered serious burns when a special dryer exploded and caused a flash fire. Because the employee received workers' compensation benefits, the Workers' Compensation Act barred a tort action against the employer. The employee sought to sue the employer in its capacity as a general contractor under the dual capacity doctrine. In a brief per curiam opinion, our supreme court declined to adopt the dual capacity doctrine as the law of South Carolina. Id.
As with Parker, the employee in Johnson was acting in the capacity for which she was employed at the time of the accident. Even if the employer undertook a second capacity, the employer did not owe the employee any duty independent from its duties as an employer. Because the employer never assumed obligations independent from those imposed as an employer, the employer never assumed a dual or second persona. Thus, neither Parker nor Johnson presented compelling facts to develop a dual persona analysis.
The present case presents a much different factual situation. Tatum was not working in the capacity for which she was hired by MUSC when she was injured by Dr. Patel's alleged malpractice. Once MUSC began to treat Tatum for her injury , the duties it owed her transmuted from those of an employer into those of a hospital treating a patient, including a duty to ensure against malpractice. Thus, this secondary relationship "created obligations to the employee independent of its obligations as employer," and the secondary relationship was so "completely independent as to create a separate legal person." 6 Larson's ยง 72.81(c), at 14-290.110-11.
Although MUSC was required to direct Tatum to a treating physician, it was not required to direct her to be treated at its own facilities. Thus, we find that once MUSC referred Tatum to Dr. Patel for treatment, its role as her employer ended, and it took on the legally distinct persona of her treating hospital. Thus, MUSC's medical treatment of Tatum was the same as its treatment of a member of the general public and bore no relation to its other persona as Tatum's employer. MUSC conceded at oral argument that non-employee members of the general public would have a viable malpractice claim against MUSC on the facts presented here, and we see no reason why Tatum should be treated differently. We can discern no tenet of public policy which would justify insulating MUSC from liability under these facts.
CONCLUSION
We hold that South Carolina recognizes the dual persona doctrine in cases where the employer-hospital and its physicians negligently treat an employee for a work-related accident and in so doing, exacerbate the injury . The Workers' Compensation Act exclusivity provisions do not bar a suit against MUSC in this case because MUSC was acting in a totally separate capacity as a legally distinct persona at the time of the malpractice. Consequently, we reverse the trial Judge's dismissal of Tatum's cause of action and remand this case for a trial on the merits.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
HUFF and STILWELL, JJ., concur.
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