Vicarious liability and non-delegable duty of care

A practice owner or a legal entity which trades in the provision of dentistry, including the partners or directors of the entity, can be successfully sued for the actions of any dentist, other clinician, or employee at the dental surgery either vicariously or on the basis of non-delegable duty of care.

A very brief explanation of vicarious liability and non-delegable duty of care is:

When a patient enters a dental surgery to receive treatment, owned by a Principal dentist or an entity trading in the provision of dentistry as a partnership, limited liability partnership or limited company; the practice owner, principal, the partners, or the limited company directors cannot, in law, delegate that patient’s duty of care to another person. This has been the law for some considerable time. This relationship between the practice owner, principal dentist, or director(s) of company and the patient is in law a non-delegable duty of care. This relationship leads to a potential non-delegable duty of care claim for negligent treatment carried out by the treating clinician.

Separately, the principal or limited company has a relationship with the treating clinicians which may be deemed to be akin to employment. This relationship leads to a potential vicarious liability claim for negligent treatment carried out by the treating clinician.

The two are separate aspects of law.

In addition, Foundation dentist trainers may be held vicariously liable for treatment provided by their trainee.

The real issue is not what the law is, it is whether the dentists can obtain guaranteed entity cover, including past cover by way of a prior acts clause, on a loss occurring basis. The insurance policy introduced by TDS can address this.

Give our join team a call to discuss corporate cover to ensure you are protecting yourself, your company, and the people in your business.