In this appeal from an order sustaining preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer and entering judgment for the defendant physician, the sole issue is whether the physician who, at the request of the insurance company which employed him, examined the electrocardiogrаm (EKG) of an applicant for insurance, owed a duty to the applicant to discover and disclose heart abnormalities recorded by the electrocardiogram. For reasons hereinafter stated, we agree with the trial court that in the absence of a physician-patient relationship or other basis for imposing upon the physician a duty to the applicant, there can be no recovery by the applicant for the physician’s failure to discover or disclose such an abnormality to the applicant. Therefore, we affirm.
In reviewing the trial court’s order sustaining preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer, we accept as true all material facts alleged in the complaint, as well as inferences reasonably deducible therefrom.
Gentile v. West American Insurance Exchange,
*133 [i]n determining whether the factual averments оf a complaint are sufficient to state a cause of action, all doubts must be resolved in favor of the sufficiency of the complaint. Slaybaugh v. Newman,330 Pa.Super. 216 ,479 A.2d 517 , 519 (1984). A demurrer will be sustained only where the complaint demonstrates with certainty that under the facts averred within, the law will not permit a recovery. Id.; see also Cianfrani v. Commonwealth, State Employees’ Retirement Board,505 Pa. 294 ,479 A.2d 468 , 469 (1984). If any theory of law will support the claim raised by the complaint, dismissal is improper. Slaybaugh, supra; Cianfrani, supra.
*134 The complaint in the instant case was filed by Donna C. Ervin in her own right and on behalf of the estate of her deceased husband, Thomas J. Ervin. She alleged that Thomas Ervin had applied to American Guardian Life Assurance Company (American) for term life insurance and that in connection therewith he had submitted to a physical examination at the request of American. As a part of the physical examination, which had been conducted by physicians employed by American on February 6, 1985, an EKG was taken. This EKG was subsequently examined for American by the defendant, Dr. Norman S. Knee, who was American’s medical director. On March 1, 1985, less than a month later, Thomas Ervin died of a heart attack. The complaint alleges that the EKG disclosed that Ervin had suffered a prior myocardial infarction and that other cardiac abnormalities existed which Dr. Knee had negligently failed to discover, or, in the alternative, had failed to report to Ervin. 1 If they had been disclosed, according to the сomplaint, Ervin’s death could have been avoided.
In sustaining Dr. Knee’s preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer, the trial court reasoned as follows:
The Court finds as a matter of law that under the pleaded facts, Plaintiffs have failed to state an actionable claim. Plaintiffs assert that Dr. Knee owed the decedent a duty but fail[ed] to establish the existence of a physician-patient relationship or any other basis for imposing upon Dr. Knee such duty.
The Complaint indicates that Dr. Knee undertook to read Mr. Ervin’s EKG pursuant to a contractual obligatiоn to American as an employee; this obligation did not extend to Mr. Ervin.
The Complaint fails to set forth, however, that Dr. Knee ever saw Mr. Ervin as a patient, treated or rendered care to Mr. Ervin or otherwise undertook to act as dece *135 dent’s physician, and no inferences сan anywhere be drawn from the Complaint that a physician-patient relationship ever existed between Defendant Dr. Knee and the deceased.
The trial court also relied upon this Court’s decision in
Craddock v. Gross,
The principal question raised by this appeal is whether a professional physician-patient relationship is a legal prerequisite to basing a cause of action in professional malpractice against a physician.
The term “malpractice” denotes a breach of the duty owed by one in rendering, professional servicеs to a person who has contracted for such services; in physician-malpractice cases, the duty owed by the physician arises from the physician-patient relationship. No such relationship existed in the case at bar. Defendant was employed by General Mоtors to examine one of its employees in preparation for a workmen’s compensation hearing. Plaintiff did not employ the defendant, nor did she seek or receive medical advice or treatment. Under such circumstances, the defendant did not owe plaintiff any duty arising from a physician-patient relationship. This is not to say that a physician who examines a person for reasons other than diagnosis or treatment and for the bene *136 fit of some one other than the examinee owes no duty of due care to that person. Rather, wе hold that the physician in such a case does not owe such a duty of care as will subject him to liability for malpractice.
Id.
It has also been held that a doctor examining a job applicant on behalf of a prospective employer owes no duty to the aрplicant to diagnose disease.
Lotspeich v. Chance Vought Aircraft,
Thus, “[t]he general rule is that a physician who is retained by a third party to conduсt an examination of another person and report the results to the third party does not enter into a physician-patient relationship with the examinee and is not liable to the examinee for any losses he suffers as a result of the conclusions the physician reaches or reports.” Proof of Facts: Existence of Physician and Patient Relationship, 46 P.O.F.2d 373, 384. See also: 61 Am.Jur.2d Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers §§ 296-298. This general rule was explained by the California Court in Keene v. Wiggins, supra, as follows:
*137 It is well established by authorities in other states the physician is liable for malpractice or nеgligence only where there is a relationship of physician-patient as a result of a contract, express or implied, that the doctor will treat the patient with proper professional skill and there is a breach of professional duty to the patient (Hoover v. Williamson,236 Md. 250 ,203 A.2d 861 , 10 A.L. R.3d 1064). Whether any such duty may result when the physician examines the person not as a part or for the purpose of medical treatment is discussed in10 A.L.R.3d 1071 . The authorities reported there uniformly hold that where no physician-patient relationship exists the doctor’s only duty is to conduct the examination in a manner not to cause harm to the person being examined. The physician acts as an agent of the person requesting the examination (see Layton v. New York Life Ins. Co.,55 Cal. App. 202 ,202 P. 958 ) and absent special circumstances, his duty to observe good standards of professional skill in reporting the results of the examination runs only to the person employing him.
Id.
In Hoover v. Williamson, supra, the plaintiff had been examined by a physician on behalf of the plaintiff’s employer. The doctor undertook to advise the plaintiff and misrepresented to him the seriousness of his condition. The Maryland Court of Appeals found that the doctor’s affirmative acts in advising the plaintiff had created a duty on the part of the physician to exercise due care in advising plaintiff because, under the peculiar facts of that case, the existence of a physician-patient relationship had been crеated. However, the court carefully limited its holding by *138 stating that normally a doctor incurs no liability absent a physician-patient relationship. Specifically, the court said:
The appellee is right in his contention that ordinarily recovery for malpractice or negligence against a doctor is allowed only where there is a relationship of doctor and patient as a result of a contract, express or implied, that the doctor will treat the patient with proper professional skill and the patient will pay for such treatment, and there has been a breach of professional duty to the patient. Thus, it has been held that there is not a doctor-patient relationship between: (a) a prospective or actual insured and the physician who examines him for the insurance company; or (b) a prоspective or actual employee and the doctor who examines him for the employer.
It may be assumed that if Dr. Williamson had done no more than direct or supervise the X-ray examination of Hoover, his only duty would have been to General Electric. The allegations of the amended count against Dr. Williamson, however, go further. Dr. Williamson urges that these further allegations are not statements of fact but, rather, are no more than the conclusions of the pleader, Hoover. We think, however, that in the context of the whole of the amendеd count under consideration, the allegations were of facts that Dr. Williamson undertook to advise Hoover of his condition of health, referred him to a consultant (expert in the field) and, after this consultation, both affirmatively undertook to advise Hoover again and, contrаry to his professional obligations, both wrongfully represented the seriousness of his condition (it may be inferred by permitting him to continue to work in the same injurious environment at General Electric) and concealed from him the recommendations to the contrary of the consultant, all to the injury of, and damage to, Hoover.
The allegations amount to more than that the doctor kept silent after review of the X-ray revelations and the *139 findings of the consultant. The charge of affirmative misrepresentation was coupled with the charge of concеalment of the consultant’s recommendations and, under the circumstances, made the concealment as much a breach of duty as the affirmative misrepresentation. Harper and James, op. cit., Sec. 18.6; Pashley v. Pacific Electric R.Co.,25 Cal.2d 226 ,153 P.2d 325 , 329.
Hoover v. Williamson, supra
Our review of the foregoing authorities leads us to the conclusion that the defendant physician in the instant case owed no duty to the plaintiff’s decedent either to discover his heart problem or, having discovered it, to inform the decedent thereof. The defendant had been employed by American to advise the company whether the applicant was an insurable risk. He was not employed to make a diagnosis for the applicant or to treat the applicant for any condition which was discovered. Neither was there any evidence that the defendant, by giving the applicant advice or otherwise, had assumed a physician-patient relationship. In the absence of a physician-patient relationship between defendant and the applicant, the defendant physician did not owe a duty to the applicant to discover and disclose that the applicant was suffering from heart abnormalities.
Appellant’s reliаnce on Section 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts to create a duty on the defendant’s part is misplaced. Section 324A provides:
One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as *140 necessаry for the protection of a third person or his things, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to protect his undertaking, if
(a) his failure to exercise reasonable care increases the risk of such harm, or
(b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person, or
(c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other or the third person upon the undertaking.
There are no averments in the instant complaint that the defendant physician acted for the benefit of anyone other than the insurance company which had employed him. The defendant’s purpose in reading the insurance applicant’s EKG had not been to treat or otherwise benefit the applicant but only to advise the insurance company whether it wаs being asked to insure one who was a poor risk. If the defendant physician breached any duty it was a duty owed to his employer, American Guardian Life Assurance Company. He owed no similar duty to the applicant.
The order of the trial court sustaining the defendant’s preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer and entering judgment for the defendant physician is affirmed.
Notes
. American paid the full amount of the policy ($200,000.00) for which Ervin had applied.