Carter v. Hucks-Folliss
North Carolina Court of Appeals
505 S.E.2d 177 (1998)
Neurosurgeon Hucks-Folliss (defendant) had failed his board certification exam three times but continued having his hospital privileges renewed every two years at Moore Regional Hospital (defendant), which had adopted accreditation standards from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) treating board certification as an important credentialing benchmark, yet the hospital did not factor his repeated exam failures into its 1992 re-credentialing decision. After Hucks-Folliss performed surgery on Carter (plaintiff) that left him with serious, permanent injuries including limited use of his arms and legs, Carter sued the hospital for negligent credentialing; the trial court granted the hospital summary judgment, and Carter appealed.
Whether a hospital's failure to meaningfully consider JCAHO's accreditation standards, including board certification, when credentialing a surgeon raises a genuine factual dispute as to the hospital's negligence.