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2 N.Y.2d 656

Bing v. Thunig

New York Court of Appeals

Decided May 16, 1957

New York Court of Appeals · decided 1957-05-16

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Very few, if any, voluntary hospitals reach the end of any year without a deficit which has to he made up by its board of directors or by other charitable gifts. This is especially so of small hospitals. In my judgment, the doctrine of the Schloendorff case has justified itself over the years and has enabled voluntary hospitals to survive. That is particularly so in small communities as distinguished from larger cities. We need both the large and small voluntary hospital. The alternative is public hospitals supported by county or State or stock company hospitals operating as businesses organized for profit.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Collopy v. Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary

Relies on Schloendorff v. Society of the New York Hospital

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1957-05-16

How this case has been cited

Cited by 280 later decisions — most recently August 2024 · most notably 33 Ill. 2d 326 - Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital (1965), State v. Harper (Slip Opinion) (2020)

24 federal appellate · 11 district · 217 state decisions — followed in 34 states

63019571960197019801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Conway, Ch. J.

¶1(concurring). I concur in result.

¶2I regret my inability to concur in the opinion of Judge Fttld. I think that, as Judge Fuld points out on page 661 of his opinion, “ the failure of the nurses * # * to inspect and remove the contaminated linen might, perhaps, be denominated an administrative default * # I think that it was an administrative default, and that the hospital should be held to be responsible under the reasoning of the many authorities cited and collated in Judge Fuld’s opinion. We should stop there and not go on to overrule the doctrine of Schloendorff v. New York Hosp. (211 N. Y. 125). A voluntary hospital is not conducted as a business. Very few, if any, voluntary hospitals reach the end of any year without a deficit which has to be made up by its board of directors or by other charitable gifts. This is especially so of small hospitals. In my judgment, the doctrine of the Schloendorffcase has justified itself over the years and has enabled voluntary hospitals to survive. That is particularly so in small communities as distinguished from *668larger cities. We need both the large and small voluntary hospital. The alternative is public hospitals supported by county or State or stock company hospitals operating as businesses organized for profit. Since it is unnecessary, in my judgment, on these facts to overrule Schloendorff v. New York Hosp. (supra),I would reverse here on the ground that we have presented to us only a negligent administrative act performed by nurses.

Desmond, Dye, Froessel, Van Voorhis and Burke, JJ., concur with Fuld, J.; Conway, Ch. J., concurring for reversal in a separate memorandum.

¶3Judgment reversed, etc.

/2/ny2d/656 · .json · Public domain