Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A Virginia appellate court held that a hospital was not vicariously liable for a nurse’s sexual battery of a patient.

H.C. was a patient at Potomac Hospital Corp. of Prince William-Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center. Frederick Yeboah, a nurse employed by the hospital, was assigned to care for H.C. on the facility’s telemetry unit. After administering morphine, Yeboah touched H.C.’s breasts and digitally penetrated her vagina. H.C. later sued Potomac Hospital Corp. and Yeboah for sexual battery and asserted that the hospital was vicariously liable for Yeboah’s acts under respondeat superior and agency theories. The trial court granted Potomac’s motion to strike and granted dismissal for Potomac, ruling there was no evidence that Yeboah’s sexual assault occurred in the scope of employment. A jury later awarded $500,000 in damages against Yeboah. The plaintiff appealed.

Affirming, the appellate court found that when viewed under the proper standard for a motion to strike, the molestation here did not coincide with Yeboah’s performance of any job-related services and resulted from a personal motive only. The court reasoned that the sexual battery occurred after Yeboah completed his nursing duties and happened at the end of his visit to H.C.’s room. Yeboah’s obtaining of H.C.’s phone number was contrary to hospital practice, the court found, adding that this evidence further indicated that Yeboah was acting on his own rather than on his employer’s behalf.

Consequently, the court concluded that the trial court’s ruling was proper.

Citation: H.C. v. Potomac Hosp. Corp. of Prince William, 2024 WL 2819618 (Va. Ct. App. June 4, 2024).