Chicago hospital wins lawsuit over resident crash

Some hope the Illinois Supreme Court will look at the case to decide if the law can hold hospitals responsible for their post-call employees.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. Oct. 24/31, 2005.

Teaching hospitals exhaled in relief after a court decision declared them not responsible for crashes caused by post-call medical residents falling asleep while driving.

Ted Nodzenski, the Illinois Hospital Assn.'s associate general counsel, said a ruling in favor of the plaintiff would have had tremendous ramifications for hospitals.

"Every time a resident, nurse or a tired CEO leaves the hospital and has an accident of some sort that causes injuries, the hospital could have been held responsible," he said. "This stopped us in our tracks. We're pleased that the court went unanimously with what traditional law has always been: When employees go off duty, their behavior is their responsibility."

A spokesman for Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, the hospital named in the suit, said the decision "is in the best interest of Rush and all other employers."

But this sense of relief could be short-lived, as the plaintiff prepares to appeal the decision of the 1st District Appellate Court of Illinois to the state Supreme Court. The appellate decision was issued in September and upheld a lower court ruling that excluded Rush from a lawsuit seeking to hold it responsible for a medical resident who fell asleep while driving, leading to a crash that injured another driver.

In July 1997, a first-year internal medicine resident driving home from Rush after 36 hours on call collided with a car driven by Heather Brewster, then 23. Brewster's head injury left her permanently disabled.