According to the rule of law under contracts, where services are rendered by one person for another and are knowingly and voluntarily accepted, the law presumes that such services are given and received in expectation of being paid for and that they will imply a promise to pay what they are reasonably worth. Similar to this is the Nursing Care Services, Inc. v. Dobos where the defendant asserted that she was not obligated to pay the plaintiff for medical assistance services rendered because she had never asserted to the services. However, contracts implied in law are imposed on the grounds of justice and equity. An Implied contract is a legally enforceable agreement that is not explicitly in writing and takes the form of either implied in fact or implied in law. Unlike implied in fact contracts which must arise from the interaction of the parties, implied in law contracts there is no dealings at all with the parties but a possibility recovery. Alternatively, quasi-contracts are implied contracts created by law to prevent unjust enrichment. Therefore, an implied promise is a promise inferred by law from a document as a whole and the circumstances surrounding its implementation.
From the plaintiff’s legal base, the most common areas in which recovery will be granted are for work performed or services rendered. However, this is subject to the limitation that the person for whose benefit they were rendered either requested the service or knowingly and voluntarily accepted the benefits. In the light of this fact, hospitals have a contractual relationship with each patient either express or implied. Thereby, when a patient is admitted in a serious condition, quasi-contract theory applies because the patient has accepted medical services and in so doing, is deemed to have agreed to pay for them. As for the defendant Dobos, she was gravely ill and it is unclear whether she understood or intended that compensation be paid. However, there was never any question as to propriety of the services she received, and it would be unconscionable to deny Nursing Services the plaintiff recovery. Just because Dobos mistakenly believed that Medicare would cover the bills, she is not absolved of liability.
It should be noted that if Dobos doctor and Nursing Services could have simply stopped rendering services to Dobos because they had not yet received the payment, it could have subjected them to immense liability. Therefore, for public policy reasons, enforcing an implied-in-law contract is the appropriate remedy. It is from my opinion that it would be inequitable for the defendant to retain the benefit without paying fair value for it therefore the plaintiff should be compensated the services rendered plus interest if any and the defendant should take care of the court costs.
