In Mehlman v. Powell, 281 Md. 269, 273, 378 A.2d 1121 (1977), the plaintiff went to a hospital emergency room for treatment. The plaintiff had no knowledge that the emergency department of the defendant hospital was operated, not by the hospital, but by an independent contractor. An emergency room physician, on duty at the time, and attending the plaintiff, misread an electrocardiogram, an error that ultimately contributed to the plaintiff's death. The Court of Appeals rejected the hospital's argument that it could not be vicariously liable for the actions of an independent physician's negligence: A hospital ... is engaged in the business of providing health care services. One enters a hospital for no other reason. When plaintiff made the decision to go to the hospital, he obviously was relying on the hospital to provide them. Furthermore, the hospital and the emergency room are located in the same general structure ... It is not to be expected that, and nothing put plaintiff on notice, that the various procedures and departments of a complex modern hospital ... are in fact franchised out to various independent contractors. Mehlman, supra, 281 Md. at 274. The Court held that the hospital was liable for the physician's negligence because it had represented that the staff in the emergency room were its employees, and that the representation caused the decedent to rely on the staff's skill. Id. at 275.