Anderson v. Eichner

In Anderson v. Eichner, 1994 OK 136, 890 P.2d 1329, the Oklahoma Supreme Court addressed the exposure to liability for medical negligence by a faculty physician like Defendant. Based on the specific provisions of the version of 152(5) in effect on the date of the alleged injury, the Court held faculty physicians were "outside the scope of their employment whenever they engage in the practice of medicine or in the provision of medical or surgical treatment, even though they also may be acting as a teacher." Therefore, the Court recognized a legislatively-created dichotomy between the teaching duties of faculty physicians and the practice of medicine. According to Anderson, this sentence "clearly takes the employee/teaching-physicians . . . out of the scope of their employment when they are practising medicine - whether for educational or other purposes - yet leaves them within the protection of respondeat superior liability for those of their duties that are disconnected from treatment of patients."