Do Medical-Malpractice Time Bars Apply to Hospitals’ Indemnification Suits Against Doctors?

By Alex Stein

The South Carolina Supreme Court has recently decided that a hospital’s indemnification suit against doctors whose malpractice made it pay compensation to the aggrieved patient is subject to the same time bars as patients’ actions against defaulting physicians. Columbia/CSA-HS Greater Columbia Healthcare System, LP v…., — S.E.2d —- (2015), 2015 WL 249536 (S.C. 2015).

Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal wrote a vehement dissent in which she was joined by Justice Kaye Hearn. In that dissent, she wrote that “The majority’s holding represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of indemnification actions which I fear will have far-reaching effects on the ability to seek indemnification.”

The Chief Justice was absolutely right. Read More