St. Joseph Hosp. v. Wolff

In St. Joseph Hosp. v. Wolff, 94 S.W.3d 513 (Tex. 2002), the dispute involved the theory of joint enterprise, and our Supreme Court was asked to determine whether an aspect of the jury charge was inaccurate. It eventually held that the instruction improperly defined an element of the theory, that element being a community of pecuniary interest in the common purpose among the members of the group. Id. at 529. Thereafter, the court was asked to assess whether the verdict encompassing on that particular element enjoyed legally sufficient evidentiary support. The court answered in the negative. Id. at 534. This absence of evidence then led the Supreme Court to state: "rather than remand this theory of recovery to the trial court to be retried using the appropriate jury instructions, we render judgment that the Wolffs take nothing against St. Joseph under a joint enterprise theory." Id. In other words, the need for a new trial due to the improper jury charge was vitiated by the absence of evidence on that particular element. In St. Joseph Hosp. v. Wolff, the supreme court reaffirmed the borrowed employee doctrine summarizing that the person whose work is controlled becomes the borrowed employee of the person or employer who exercised the control. Id. ("'One who would otherwise be in the general employment of one employer is a borrowed employee of another employer if such other employer or his agents have the right to direct and control the details of the particular work inquired about.'") (quoting State Bar of Texas, Pattern Jury Charges--Malpractice, Premises & Products 52.2 cmt. (1997)). The Wolff court decided that because "the Foundation or its supervising physician had the right to direct and control the details of the resident's medical treatment" of the plaintiff, then "regardless of any evidence that the resident was the general or regular employee of the hospital in which treatment occurred and which employed the resident, he was acting as the borrowed employee of the Foundation as a matter of law when he treated the plaintiff." Id. at 542.