1. If Flagiello had been a burglar who was breaking into the medical supply cabinet instead of a patient when she injured her ankle, would the court have been willing to abandon the charitable immunity doctrine? Why or why not?
2. Do you agree with Flagiello’s argument that the hospital should not be immune from liability because she was actually a paying patient? Should standards of negligence be based on a patient’s status?
3. Does this case mean that stare decisis may be discarded whenever a judge perceives that following precedent will “shipwreck justice”?
Flagiello, a patient at Pennsylvania Hospital, sued the hospital, claiming it was negligent in maintaining certain conditions on hospital property that resulted in her injuring her ankle. The ankle injury was unrelated to the original reason for Flagiello’s admission to the hospital. A Pennsylvania state trial court dismissed the lawsuit without trial because established state common law clearly exempted charitable institutions, such as the Pennsylvania Hospital, from any liability related to their negligence (a concept called the charitable immunity doctrine). Flagiello appealed on the basis that (1) she was a paying patient and (2) the charitable immunity doctrine was outdated given the fact that most charity hospitals now receive funding from state and local governments.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in favor of Flagiello. Although the court acknowledged the important role of stare decisis, it also pointed out that the doctrine is not intended to apply when societal norms dictate otherwise. In this case, the court noted that other states had abandoned the charitable immunity doctrine as no longer necessary and that public benefit and fairness demanded that injured parties who are entitled to recover for their losses be allowed to pursue a negligence action against a charitable institution.
“Stare decisis channels the law. It erects light-houses and [flies] the signals of safety. The ships of jurisprudence must follow that well-defined channel which, over the years, has been proved to be secure and trustworthy. But it would not comport with wisdom to insist that, should shoals rise in a heretofore safe course and rocks emerge to encumber the passage, the ship should nonetheless pursue the original course, merely because it presented no hazard in the past. The principle of stare decisis does not demand that we follow precedents which shipwreck justice.
“Stare decisis is not an iron mold into which every utterance by a court, regardless of circumstances, parties, economic barometer and sociological climate, must be poured, and, where, like wet concrete, it must acquire an unyielding rigidity which nothing later can change.”
