Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital
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Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 211 N.Y. 125, 105 N.E. 92 (1915), was a decision issued by the New York Court of Appeals in 1914 which established principles of informed consent and respondeat superior in United States law. The plaintiff, Mary Schloendorff, was admitted to New York Hospital and consented to being examined under ether, but withheld consent to an operation. The physician disregarded Schloendorff's wishes and operated to remove a tumor.
The Court found that the operation to which the plaintiff did not consent constituted medical battery. Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote in the Court's opinion:
Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient's consent commits an assault for which he is liable in damages. This is true except in cases of emergency where the patient is unconscious and where it is necessary to operate before consent can be obtained.
Schloendorff, however, had sued the hospital itself, not the physicians. For this reason, the Court found that a non-profit hospital could not be held liable for the actions of its employees-- a principle that became known as the "Schloendorff rule". The Court would later reject the "Schloendorff rule" in the 1957 decision of Bing v. Thunig.
