Caine v. Hardy, 89-4470

Citation905 F.2d 858
Decision Date27 June 1990
Docket NumberNo. 89-4470,89-4470
Parties, 17 Fed.R.Serv.3d 27 Curtis W. CAINE, Jr., M.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HARDY, M.D., Woodie L. Mason, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 858

905 F.2d 858
59 USLW 2063, 17 Fed.R.Serv.3d 27
Curtis W. CAINE, Jr., M.D., Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
HARDY, M.D., Woodie L. Mason, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 89-4470.
United States Court of Appeals,
Fifth Circuit.
June 27, 1990.
Order Granting Rehearing En Banc
Aug. 3, 1990.

Edith H. Jones, Circuit Judge, filed dissenting opinion.

Page 859

Kent Masterson Brown, Lexington, Ky. and Paul M. Neville, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiff-appellant.

George Q. Evans, Douglas E. Levanway and George H. Ritter, Wise, Carter, Child & Caraway, Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Before BROWN, WILLIAMS and JONES, Circuit Judges.

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

Curtis W. Caine, Jr., M.D. appeals a district court order dismissing his Sec. 1983 lawsuit against a hospital and the individuals who participated in the termination of Caine's hospital staff privileges. 715 F.Supp. 166.

I.

Because this appeal is from an order dismissing Caine's lawsuit, the facts alleged in Caine's lengthy complaint are taken as true. See, L & L Oil Co. v. Murphy Oil Corp., 674 F.2d 1113, 1115 (5th Cir.1982).

Caine is an anesthesiologist who in 1983 was granted staff privileges at Hinds General Hospital, a public hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. As he was required to do by hospital bylaws, Caine reapplied for staff privileges at two year intervals. Caine's applications were reviewed, and each time his privileges were renewed.

Three other anesthesiologists practicing at Hinds General were engaged in a partnership. These partners were M.D. Hardy, M.D.; Hardy's spouse Darilynn Wilson, M.D.; and Robert Strong, M.D. In 1987 and 1988, the members of this partnership sought an exclusive contract to perform anesthesia services at Hinds General. Caine and other independent anesthesiologists practicing at Hinds General objected to the proposed exclusive contract. It was not granted. Caine also ran against Hardy for the Chairmanship of the Hinds General Department of Anesthesiology. Hardy won the election by one vote.

Caine alleges that Hardy and his partners not long thereafter initiated an investigation into Caine's practice at Hinds General that resulted in Caine's staff privileges being suspended by the Executive Committee, then revoked by the Executive Committee, and finally formally terminated by the Hinds General Board of Trustees. Caine claims that he was denied procedural due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment at each step.

II.

Caine sued the hospital and the individuals involved in the suspension process in federal district court. He alleged civil

Page 860

rights claims under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (the HCQIA), 42 U.S.C. Sec. 11101, et seq. Without filing an answer, appellees filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or for summary judgment. Caine filed a motion for leave to amend his complaint in order to assert free speech claims under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Caine's motion initially was granted by the district court. Later, however, the district court reversed its decision and refused to allow Caine to amend his complaint. The court then granted appellees' motion to dismiss.

The district court, relying on established Sec. 1983 precedent, held that under the Parratt /Hudson doctrine 1 Caine could not state a Sec. 1983 claim because the state provided him with an adequate postdeprivation remedy. Under the Parratt/Hudson doctrine, a state can not be held liable for a denial of predeprivation procedural due process at the hands of a state actor if the deprivation is random and not authorized by state policy and if the state provides a claimant with an adequate postdeprivation remedy. The court held that the Mississippi procedure provided Caine an avenue of appeal from the action of the hospital to the Mississippi Chancery Court. The court found this to be an adequate postdeprivation remedy. 2 Because Caine did not appeal to the Chancery Court, the district court held that he had not availed himself of available, adequate postdeprivation relief. He could not, therefore, state a Sec. 1983 claim.

III.

We previously have weighed the competing interests of physicians and hospitals, and have concluded that hospitals need not provide doctors full procedural due process before initially suspending medical staff privileges if the suspension is imposed to protect the hospital's patients. See Darlak v. Bobear, 814 F.2d 1055, 1063 (5th Cir.1987). A fair reading of Caine's complaint, however, indicates that he claims that the initial suspension was motivated by appellees' personal vendetta against him and not by the hospital's interest in protecting patient safety. Because we must accept this allegation as true, we must conclude that Caine does not come within the Darlak rule, but instead was entitled to full procedural due process even in the decision to suspend. See Northeast Georgia Radiological Assoc. v. Tidwell, 670 F.2d 507, 511 (5th Cir.1982) ("medical staff privileges embody such a valuable property interest that notice and hearing should be held prior to its termination or withdrawal, absent some extraordinary situation where a valid government or medical interest is at stake."). But, regardless of whether Caine was entitled to full procedural due process at this initial stage, he certainly was entitled to full procedural due process after the suspension because the hospital could no longer have any pressing need to protect its patients from him.

Although a doctor is entitled to full procedural due process before his or her staff privileges are revoked, that entitlement has not in the past automatically established a Sec. 1983 claim if privileges are suspended without procedural due process. Under the Parratt/Hudson doctrine, a state could not be held liable for a state employee's "random

Page 861

and unauthorized" failure to provide predeprivation procedural due process if the state provided an adequate postdeprivation remedy for persons who were deprived of their property without due process of law. See, Martin v. Dallas County, Texas, 822 F.2d 553, 555 (5th Cir.1987). This Court has applied the Parratt/Hudson doctrine even where the state employee depriving the Sec. 1983 claimant of predeprivation procedural due process was a high-ranking state employee who was charged with providing procedural due process for that claimant. See Holloway v. Walker, 790 F.2d 1170, 1173 (5th Cir.1986). Other Courts of Appeals have applied the Parratt/Hudson doctrine less broadly than we. See, e.g., Watts v. Burkhart, 854 F.2d 839 (6th Cir.1988).

But the controlling constitutional authority has changed. After the district court had dismissed Caine's complaint, the Supreme Court decided Zinermon v. Burch, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990). The Court noted that it granted certiorari in Zinermon to resolve conflict among the Courts of Appeals over the scope of the Parratt/Hudson doctrine. Zinermon, 110 S.Ct. at 978. Zinermon controls appellant Caine's case. Its holding requires reconsideration of this Court's Parratt/Hudson jurisprudence.

Zinermon was a Sec. 1983 suit brought by Darrell Burch, a man who had been detained in the Florida state mental hospital. Burch had been found wandering along a highway, hurt and disoriented. After he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, state employees secured Burch's...

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