Vaidik, J.
Case Summary
Our Supreme Court held in Sword v. NKC Hospitals, Inc., 714 N.E.2d 142 (Ind. 1999), that a hospital could be held vicariously liable for the negligence of an independent-contractor physician under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 429 (1965). The issue in this case is whether that holding applies to a non-hospital facility—specifically, a diagnostic imaging center. We hold it does.
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Arrendale contends Sword should apply to non-hospital entities, asserting: “When a patient receives health care in a facility, whether that facility is a hospital, nursing home, or center for radiologic studies, a patient reasonably expects or believes that the health care workers making those facilities function are employees or agents of those facilities.” Appellant’s Br. p. 14. [Footnote omitted.]…
Marion Open MRI, on the other hand, argues Sword should be limited to hospitals because a hospital—unlike a diagnostic imaging center—is a provider of a broad range of medical services and holds itself out as such….
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While not binding on us, we find Judge Magnus-Stinson’s analysis to be highly persuasive, and Marion Open MRI has not given us a convincing reason to depart from it. In short, just as it is reasonable for a hospital patient to believe that the doctors providing care in a hospital are employees or agents of the hospital, it is reasonable for a patient of a diagnostic imaging center to believe that the radiologists interpreting images for the center are employees or agents of the center, unless the center informs the patient to the contrary. [Footnote omitted.] We therefore hold Sword applies to diagnostic imaging centers.
II. Should our holding be applied prospectively only?
Marion Open MRI argues that even if we hold Sword applies to diagnostic imaging centers, our holding “should be applied prospectively only,” i.e., should not be applied in this case. Appellee’s Br. p. 33. For three reasons, we disagree. First, “Appellate court decisions routinely apply to the parties involved, and everyone else, even when addressing an unresolved point of law.” Ray-Hayes v. Heinamann, 768 N.E.2d 899, 900 (Ind. 2002). Second, our Supreme Court did not restrict its holding in Sword to future cases, even though it was a much greater departure from established law than our holding today. And third, an appellate decision will be limited to prospective application only if, among other things, it establishes “a new principle of law, either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied, or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed.” Id. Marion Open MRI identifies no precedent we are purportedly “overruling,” and we obviously could not overrule our Supreme Court’s holding in Sword even if we believed that was necessary. Moreover, our decision was clearly foreshadowed by Sword itself. To be sure, the Sword Court limited its holding to the hospital context, but we see that as a simple matter of judicial restraint, as the defendant in that case was a hospital. Nothing in the opinion indicates to us that our Supreme Court believed its holding should never be applied outside the hospital context. Our holding today is a natural progression of Sword and should be applied in this case.
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Reversed and remanded.
Bradford, C.J., and Brown, J., concur.