Contract Basics
A legally enforceable promise between two or more parties.
What is a contract?
Failure to perform a contractual obligation.
What is a breach of contract?
Touching a patient without consent.
What is battery?
A relationship where one person acts for another with consent.
What is agency?
Often required for physician recruitment or equipment leases.
What are written contracts?
Exchange of value making a contract binding.
What is consideration?
Money awarded to compensate for actual loss.
What are compensatory damages?
Threatening to touch a patient without consent.
What is assault?
The principal is responsible for an agent’s authorized acts.
What is vicarious liability?
When terms are implied by law rather than expressed.
What is an implied contract?
Element showing both parties agree to same terms.
What is mutual assent?
Court order directing someone to perform their contract.
What is specific performance?
Restraining a patient without lawful authority.
What is false imprisonment?
If an employee acts far outside their duties, the hospital may claim this defense.
What is detour and frolic?
Providers sometimes promise specific results, creating this liability.
What is breach of warranty?
If a party lacks this, their contract may be voidable.
What is capacity?
When a contract breach is excused because performance was impossible.
What is impossibility?
Wrongfully harming someone’s reputation.
What is defamation?
Written authority giving one party power to act for another.
What is power of attorney?
When a contract benefits someone who isn’t a direct party.
What is a third party beneficiary?
A contract with illegal subject matter is considered this.
What is void?
When a party gains unjust enrichment despite no formal contract.
What is a quasi-contract?
Deliberate interference with a patient–provider relationship.
What is intentional interference with contractual relations?
A hospital avoids liability by showing a physician is not its employee but this.
What is an independent contractor?
Contracts prohibited because they limit patient choice and harm competition.
What are restraint-of-trade agreements?