A Pennsylvania court dismissed an ambulatory surgery center from a malpractice lawsuit, ruling that an ASC isn’t automatically accountable just because a procedure happened under its roof — liability still comes down to who actually employed the person accused of the mistake.
In a July 27 decision, the Berks County Court of Common Pleas dismissed both the surgeon and the ASC named in Rosenberger v. Berks Plastic Surgery Institute, while allowing the case to proceed against the surgical practice that employed the recovery room nurse involved in the patient’s care, according to court documents reviewed by Becker’s.
The suit arose from a 2020 elective cosmetic procedure, after which the patient alleged an anesthesiologist’s IV placement went wrong and wasn’t caught in time, leading to serious complications. The patient’s side argued the surgeon should be held responsible under the “captain of the ship” doctrine — the idea that the lead surgeon controls everyone in the room, including anesthesia staff.
The court disagreed. It found that having general authority over a case — including the power to stop a procedure — isn’t the same as controlling how a separately licensed specialist, like an anesthesiologist, does their own job. The anesthesiologist testified he alone managed the IV, medications and monitoring, with no one directing his technique. On that record, the surgeon wasn’t liable for what the anesthesiologist allegedly did wrong.
The surgery center was dismissed because nothing in the case tied it to either the anesthesiologist or the nurse as an employer.
The surgical practice that employed the nurse remains a defendant, since her alleged failures to monitor the IV site were treated as a separate nursing-standard issue, distinct from the anesthesia claim.
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