Chadha v. Charlotte Hungerford Hospital

• Decision Date: 27 May 2003
• Docket Number: (AC 22395).
• Citation: 77 Conn. App. 104,822 A.2d 303
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: MOHINDER P. CHADHA v. CHARLOTTE HUNGERFORD HOSPITAL ET AL.

77 Conn. App. 104

822 A.2d 303

MOHINDER P. CHADHA v. CHARLOTTE HUNGERFORD HOSPITAL ET AL.

(AC 22395).

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued September 26, 2002.

Officially released May 27, 2003.

Lavery, C. J., and Foti and Landau, Js. Jeffrey R. Babbin, with whom was Bethany L. Appleby, for the appellants (named defendant et al.).

Mohinder P. Chadha, pro se, the appellee (plaintiff).

Opinion

LAVERY, C.J.

The defendants Charlotte Hungerford Hospital (hospital), Samuel Langer, Michael Kovalchik and Justin O. Schechter appeal¹ from the judgment of the trial court denying their motion for summary judgment. The dispositive issue on appeal is whether the court improperly concluded that the defendants were not entitled to absolute immunity from suit due to the common-law rule that confers such immunity on persons who make statements in connection with quasi-judicial proceedings. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The record reveals the following facts and procedural history. In February, 1997, the plaintiff, Mohinder P. Chadha, a licensed psychiatrist, was a member of the hospital medical staff with admitting privileges. On March 3, 1997, the hospital contacted the impaired physician program of the Connecticut State Medical Society (medical society)² regarding its concerns about the plaintiff's ability to practice medicine with reasonable skill and safety. The department of public health filed a "statement of charges," dated May 13, 1997, against the plaintiff with the Connecticut medical examining board (board) requesting that it "revoke or take any other action . . . against the medical license of [the plaintiff] as it deems appropriate and consistent with law." On May 14, 1997, Langer, Kovalchik, Schechter and Robert Stine, physicians licensed to practice in the state of Connecticut, submitted affidavits to the department of public health expressing concerns about the plaintiff's ability to practice psychiatry safely.³ On May 20, 1997, the board ordered the summary suspension of the plaintiff's license to practice medicine pending a final determination by the board. On November 27, 1997, the hospital submitted a report to the National Practitioner Data Bank pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 11133 (a). In January, 1998, the board issued a final decision ordering the immediate suspension of the plaintiff's license to practice because he had written ten prescriptions for controlled substances while his license was under suspension.⁴

In July, 2000, the plaintiff filed a twenty-one count amended complaint against the hospital, Langer, Kovalchik, Schechter and Stine. Thereafter, the court struck or dismissed all but five of the counts.⁵ The first of the remaining counts sounded in defamation and claimed that the hospital had submitted a false report to the National Practitioner Data Bank. The other four counts alleged that Langer, Kovalchik, Schechter and Stine maliciously had submitted false affidavits to the department of public health. The defendants answered the remaining portions of the plaintiff's amended complaint and asserted several special defenses, including absolute immunity for statements made in connection with quasi-judicial proceedings and qualified immunity pursuant to General Statutes §§ 19a-20⁶ and 19a-17b.⁷

On February 7, 2001, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. On July 31, 2001, the court granted summary judgment on the claim that the hospital maliciously had submitted a false report to the National Practitioner Data Bank.⁸ The court denied summary judgment on claims that the physicians maliciously had submitted false affidavits to the department of public health. In its memorandum of decision, the court concluded that the defendants were protected by qualified immunity, pursuant to §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b, and that qualified immunity and not absolute immunity applied to the defendants' submission of affidavits to the department of public health because the qualified immunity statutes, §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b, abrogate the common-law absolute immunity provided to persons who make statements in connection with quasi-judicial proceedings.

Although the court concluded that the plaintiff had failed to present any proof of actual malice, which is necessary to overcome the qualified immunity provided by §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b, it nevertheless denied the defendants' motion because it found that they had failed to meet their burden pursuant to Practice Book § 17-45 et seq.⁹ More particularly, the court stated that there were no documents submitted with the defendants' motion that addressed the physicians' affidavits and that, by not submitting any proof countering the plaintiff's allegations that the defendants had acted with malice, the defendants failed to meet their burden of submitting supporting documentation establishing that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to the issue of malice. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the defendants claim that the court improperly denied their motion for summary judgment on the remaining four counts. Specifically, they claim that the court improperly determined that they were not protected by absolute immunity for the statements contained in their affidavits. We disagree. Initially, we note that the denial of a motion for summary judgment is not, ordinarily, an appealable final judgment. Young v. Metropolitan Property & Casualty Ins. Co., 60 Conn. App. 107, 112, 758 A.2d 452, cert. denied, 255 Conn. 906, 762 A.2d 912 (2000). Where, however, an interlocutory "order or action so concludes the rights of the parties that further proceedings cannot affect them," the interlocutory order may constitute a final judgment. State v. Curcio, 191 Conn. 27, 31, 463 A.2d 566 (1983). In Shay v. Rossi, 253 Conn. 134, 167, 749 A.2d 1147 (2000) (en banc), our Supreme Court determined that the "denial of a motion to dismiss, filed on the basis of a colorable claim of sovereign immunity, must be regarded under Curcio as an immediately appealable final judgment." Similarly, we regard this denial of a motion for summary judgment, which was filed, inter alia, on the basis of a colorable claim of absolute immunity, as an immediately appealable final judgment under Curcio. See id. We therefore will review the defendants' claim that the court improperly concluded that they were not entitled to absolute immunity for the statements contained in their affidavits.

The defendants claim that the court improperly determined that §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b abrogate the common-law absolute immunity provided to persons who make statements in connection with quasi-judicial proceedings. The defendants in their principal brief assert several arguments in support of their claim that the qualified immunity provided by §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b does not supplant quasi-judicial absolute immunity and that, in fact, the qualified immunity provided by §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b and the absolute immunity provided by the common law are concurrent; that is, that "where both an absolute and qualified immunity apply, the absolute immunity trumps the other." We are not persuaded. We first set forth our standard of review. The defendants' claim involves a determination of the construction to be given §§ 19a-20 and 19a-17b in light of the common-law grant of absolute immunity to those who make statements in connection with quasi-judicial proceedings. Statutory construction presents a question of law, and our review is, therefore, plenary. State v. Marro, 68 Conn. App. 849, 855, 795 A.2d 555 (2002).

"The process of statutory interpretation involves a reasoned search for the intention of the legislature. . . . In other words, we seek to determine, in a reasoned manner, the meaning of the statutory language as applied to the facts of [the] case, including the question of whether the language actually does apply. In seeking to determine that meaning, we look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter.... Thus, this process requires us to consider all relevant sources of the meaning of the language at issue, without having to cross any threshold or thresholds of ambiguity. Thus, we do not follow the plain meaning rule.

"In performing this task, we begin with a searching examination of the language of the statute, because that is the most important factor to be considered. In doing so, we attempt to determine its range of plausible meanings and, if possible, narrow that range to those that appear most plausible. We do not, however, end with the language. We recognize, further, that the purpose or purposes of the legislation, and the context of the language, broadly understood, are directly relevant to the meaning of the language of the statute.

"This does not mean, however, that we will not, in a given case, follow what may be regarded as the plain meaning of the language, namely, the meaning that, when the language is considered without reference to any extratextual sources of its meaning, appears to be the meaning and that appears to preclude any other likely meaning. In such a case, the more strongly the bare text supports such a meaning, the more persuasive the extratextual sources of meaning will have to be in order to yield a different meaning. . . . State v. Courchesne, 262 Conn. 537, 577-78, 816 A.2d 562 (2003)." (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Grondin v. Curi, 262 Conn. 637, 649-50, 817 A.2d 61 (2003).

In the present case, we are not asked to determine the meaning or applicability of §§ 19a-20 or 19a-17b, as the parties are in agreement that the statutes are applicable to the defendants and that they provide qualified immunity to them. Instead, we are asked to determine the construction to be accorded where the qualified...