{"id":463,"date":"2026-08-10T11:45:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/?p=463"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:45:30","slug":"pennsylvania-supreme-court-review-issues-regarding-vicarious-liability-increased-risk-harm-upcoming-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/2026\/08\/10\/pennsylvania-supreme-court-review-issues-regarding-vicarious-liability-increased-risk-harm-upcoming-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Review Issues Regarding Vicarious Liability and Increased Risk of Harm in Upcoming Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/sharonlcaffrey.html\">Sharon L. Caffrey<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/robertmpalumbos.html\">Robert M. Palumbos<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/anneagruner.html\">Anne A. Gruner<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/jjlarkins.html\">J.J. Larkins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On July 29, 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted allocatur to review <em>Hagans v. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania<\/em>, in which the Superior Court affirmed a $182.7 million jury award that, accounting for delay damages, produced a judgment exceeding $207 million. The court will decide whether vicarious liability may be imposed on a hospital without an express jury finding against a specific named agent, and whether the jury may find liability based on either factual causation or increased risk of harm, resolving a direct conflict between Superior Court panels on this important causation question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read the full <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/alerts\/pennsylvania_supreme_court_review_issues_regarding_vicarious_liability_increased_risk_harm_0826.html\">Alert<\/a><\/em> on the Duane Morris LLP website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sharon L. Caffrey,\u00a0Robert M. Palumbos,\u00a0Anne A. Gruner and\u00a0J.J. Larkins On July 29, 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted allocatur to review Hagans v. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, in which the Superior Court affirmed a $182.7 million jury award that, accounting for delay damages, produced a judgment exceeding $207 million. The court will &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/2026\/08\/10\/pennsylvania-supreme-court-review-issues-regarding-vicarious-liability-increased-risk-harm-upcoming-appeal\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Review Issues Regarding Vicarious Liability and Increased Risk of Harm in Upcoming Appeal&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[238],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":238,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2014\/10\/dmlogo.jpg","author_category":"1","last_name":"Davies","first_name":"Thomas","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com","description":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\">Visit the Duane Morris website.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}