Capital Imaging Associates, P.C. v. Mohawk Valley Medical Associates, Inc.

• Decision Date: 10 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. 414,D,414
• Citation: 996 F.2d 537
• Parties: 1993-1 Trade Cases P 70,270 CAPITAL IMAGING ASSOCIATES, P.C., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MOHAWK VALLEY MEDICAL ASSOCIATES, INC., Mohawk Valley Physicians Plan, Inc., Defendants-Appellees. ocket 92-7639.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 537

996 F.2d 537

1993-1 Trade Cases P 70,270

CAPITAL IMAGING ASSOCIATES, P.C., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MOHAWK VALLEY MEDICAL ASSOCIATES, INC., Mohawk Valley

Physicians Plan, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 414, Docket 92-7639.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued Nov. 9, 1992.

Decided June 10, 1993.

Phillip G. Steck, Albany, NY (Mark E. Watkins, Cooper, Erving, Savage, Nolan & Heller, Albany, NY, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.

William G. Kopit, New York City (Clifford E. Barnes, Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C., New York City, J. Edward Neugebauer, Washington, DC, of counsel), for defendants-appellees.

Before: NEWMAN, CARDAMONE, and MAHONEY, Circuit Judges.

CARDAMONE, Circuit Judge:

We have before us on this appeal a claimed violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Certainly one strand of the philosophical underpinning leading to the passage of that Act is derived from the thinking of John Stuart A private radiology group brought this antitrust action in the district court against a health maintenance organization and the group of physicians organized to provide medical care to the health plan's enrollees. The radiologists complained that they were improperly excluded from providing services to the patients of the health care purveyor. Such exclusion, they argued, constituted a violation of the Sherman Act. After limited discovery, the district court granted the defendants summary judgment. In so doing, it examined only the "vertical" relationship between the health maintenance organization and its physicians' association, which the plaintiff radiologists argue was error. Although we agree with the radiology group that certain "horizontal" aspects of the defendants' practices improperly were not considered, we affirm the judgment of the district court, though for somewhat different reasons, because it reached the correct result.

                Mill, who, in his influential essay "On Liberty," observed:  "trade is a social act.   Whoever undertakes to sell any description of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general;  and thus his conduct, in principle, comes within the jurisdiction of society," J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapt.  V, 303 (Harv.Class., Eliot ed., 1909).   Plainly, not all competitive conduct that injures another allows resort to laws regulating trade.   Antitrust law is not intended to be as available as an over-the-counter cold remedy, because were its heavy power brought into play too readily it would not safeguard competition, but destroy it.   Determining whether conduct allegedly in restraint of trade violates the Sherman Act requires careful analysis and fine discernment between those actions that generally tend to inhibit competition and those that either tend to promote it or at least not injure it.   Such an analysis is our task on the present appeal
                

BACKGROUND

A. The Parties

Capital Imaging Associates, P.C. (Capital, plaintiff or appellant) is a private radiology group of doctors who practice in Latham, a suburb of Albany, located at the northern tip of Albany County, New York, only a few miles from the borders of Schenectady, Saratoga, and Rensselaer Counties. Capital operates as a referral practice, that is, its physicians do not treat their own patients; rather, they supervise the performance of diagnostic radiological procedures on patients referred to the group by general clinicians, interpret the resulting images, and report their findings to the primary care physicians. The radiology group offers a full range of diagnostic imaging services, including such specialized radiological procedures as ultrasound, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) scanning. The only comparable full-service radiology practice within a 100-mile radius of Albany County is Two Rivers Radiology, P.C. (Two Rivers), which has two offices, one in Rensselaer County and the other in Albany County directly across the street from Capital in Latham.

Mohawk Valley Medical Associates (Mohawk Valley, defendant or appellee) is an independent association of private physicians providing medical care to over 100,000 enrollees in appellee Mohawk Valley Physicians Health Plan (Plan). Mohawk Valley and the Plan were defendants at the district court. Together the physicians' association and the Plan constitute an independent practice association (IPA) model health maintenance organization (HMO). Under the IPA-HMO arrangement, the managed health care purveyor (in this case the Plan) contracts with the physicians' practice association, Mohawk Valley, to provide a full range of medical services for the HMO's enrollees, who must then go to Mohawk Valley physicians for all their medical care needs.

According to the terms of their agreement, the Plan purchases medical services from Mohawk Valley at a fixed contract or capitation rate per individual health plan enrollee. Although the arrangement among the Mohawk Valley physicians apparently does not permit price competition among the doctors, the capitation system promotes efficiency and is viewed as pro-competitive because it gives the independent practice physicians an incentive to keep medical costs down. That is, unless Mohawk Valley agrees to a sufficiently In order to operate as an HMO in New York, the Plan was required to apply for and receive a certificate of authority from the New York State Department of Health (Department). The Department regulates HMOs to ensure that patients are afforded with comprehensive and continuous medical care. It also certifies the service area within which an HMO may offer its benefits package. See N.Y.Pub. Health Law § 4402 (McKinney 1985). At the commencement of this lawsuit, the Plan was licensed to operate in several central and upstate New York communities, but not in Albany County.

                low capitation rate, the Plan will be unable to compete with other health care providers in the private insurance market, in which case the Mohawk Valley physicians will not receive a steady stream of patients and income from the HMO.   See generally U.S. Healthcare, Inc. v. Healthsource, Inc., 986 F.2d 589 (1st Cir.1993) (describing HMO cost containment procedures)
                

Mohawk Valley is also regulated by the Department. In accordance with state law it is obligated to, inter alia, staff itself with physicians and other health care professionals as necessary to meet the full needs of the Plan's enrollees, and to establish credential requirements for membership in its practice association. Consonant with these obligations, Mohawk Valley promulgated standards for admission of doctors into its association. To be admitted, a member physician must have (1) privileges in hospitals participating with the Plan, (2) offices within the state-certified service area, and (3) staff and facilities to provide adequate and continuous care to Plan patients. Limited exceptions to these admission requirements have been made when a pressing need exists for additional primary care physicians or specialists.

An application for membership is reviewed by the Mohawk Valley credentials committee, which makes a recommendation to its board of directors. According to the association's guidelines, the board may either approve the admission request or inform the applicant that it intends to deny it. If the board chooses the latter course, the applicant may request a hearing, during which he or she may present materials to support the application.

B. The Complaint

This litigation came about as a result of the denial of appellant Capital's application for membership in Mohawk Valley. Appellant alleges that on February 24, 1987 it sent a written request for admission into the practice association, which was denied on July 21 because Capital was located outside of the Plan's designated service area. According to Capital, its application was spurned without prior notice and an opportunity for a hearing before the association's board of directors, procedures mandated by Mohawk Valley's standards for admission. Moreover, appellant contends the purported reason for denial is inconsistent with the Plan's description of its service area in its promotional literature to enrollees and with Mohawk Valley's treatment of other Latham-based physicians seeking membership.

In support of that contention, Capital points out that following the veto of its admissions application, it was asked to bid on an exclusive one-year contract to provide imaging services for Mohawk Valley. In October 1987 the association's board of directors rejected Capital's bid and voted instead to award the contract to Two Rivers because Two Rivers' bid was $40 per scan lower. Appellant believes the bidding process was flawed and provides further evidence of appellees' hostility towards it.

As a result of these events, on December 5, 1988, Capital commenced the instant litigation against both appellees in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (McCurn, C.J.). The complaint alleged that commencing September 1986 and continuing to the present time, appellees, along with Two Rivers and other unnamed parties, engaged in a conspiracy to exclude Capital from membership in the independent practice association. According to Capital this action constitutes an unlawful combination in restraint of trade in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act and an attempt to monopolize trade and commerce in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act. The complaint further alleged that these activities violate

New York State's General Business Law and the common law barring unfair competition.

C. Prior Proceedings

Appellees made a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) and for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). They also moved, in the alternative, for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 on the ground that there were no genuine issues of...