Christian Care Home of Cincinnati, Inc. v. State Certificate of Need Review Bd.

• Decision Date: 26 May 1988
• Docket Number: No. 88AP-146,88AP-146
• Citation: 548 N.E.2d 981,48 Ohio App.3d 158
• Parties: CHRISTIAN CARE HOME OF CINCINNATI, INC., Appellant, v. STATE CERTIFICATE OF NEED REVIEW BOARD , Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

Page 158

48 Ohio App.3d 158

548 N.E.2d 981

CHRISTIAN CARE HOME OF CINCINNATI, INC., Appellant, v. STATE CERTIFICATE OF NEED REVIEW BOARD [Director of Health], Appellee.

No. 88AP-146.

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Tenth District, Franklin County.

May 26, 1988.

Syllabus by the Court

1. A party aggrieved by a final order of an administrative agency may appeal that order to the court of common pleas, pursuant to R.C. Chapter 119, if the order was rendered in the course of a quasi-judicial proceeding. A quasi-judicial proceeding requires notice, a hearing, an opportunity to introduce testimony, and a finding or decision made in accordance with statutory authority.

2. Even where an administrative board enters an order remanding the cause to the state agency for further consideration or action, the order is, nevertheless, appealable to the court of common pleas pursuant to R.C. 119.12 if the order affects a substantial right. (Former R.C. 3702.58[B], applied.)

Geoffrey E. Webster, Columbus, for appellant.

Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Atty. Gen., and Lawrence D. Pratt, Columbus, for appellee.

STRAUSBAUGH, Justice.

This is an appeal by appellant, Christian Care Home of Cincinnati, Inc., from a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas which sustained appellee's motion to dismiss. The basis for appellee's motion was that the order of the State Certificate of Need Review Board ("board") from which the appeal was taken was not a final, appealable order pursuant to former R.C. 3702.58.

Appellant is a thirty-three-nursing-bed, long-term care facility located in Cincinnati. The facility provides intermediate care services, for which approximately sixty to seventy percent of its patient population qualifies under the Medicaid program.

Appellant, on July 2, 1984, filed a Certificate of Need ("CON") application with appellee, the Ohio Director of Health, for eighty-four long-term care beds which consisted of the replacement of the existing facility and the addition of fifty-one beds. The application was declared complete on April 29, 1985. The application was reviewed by a medical facilities' consultant on behalf of the director, who recommended that the application be amended to request fifty nursing home beds consisting of thirty-three replacement units and seventeen new beds. The result of this review was ultimately embodied in a staff report which recommended that appellant's request for a Certificate of Need be denied. The director formally notified appellant on November 14, 1985 that the CON was denied.

Thereafter, appellant requested a public hearing for reconsideration of the director's decision pursuant to former Ohio Adm. Code 3701-12-15. Appellant's request for reconsideration was premised on a modified CON application for the replacement of only fifty beds. Additional information was submitted regarding changes to the application. Appellant's amended application apparently sought the replacement of the existing thirty-three nursing home beds, the addition of seventeen nursing home beds, a new facility and the remodeling of the existing facility into a service facility.

Appellant requested an adjudication hearing before the board on January 13, 1986. Upon review, the board denied appellant's request for the fifty-one-bed addition to the existing nursing home facility and remanded appellant's application to the director for consideration of the amended fifty-bed CON application consisting of thirty-three nursing home beds plus either seventeen assisted care beds or sixteen assisted care beds and one isolation bed.

Appellant then initiated the present suit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas on August 5, 1987 seeking a review of the board's order. Appellee, on December 3, 1987, filed a motion to dismiss on the basis that the order was nonfinal and nonappealable. The trial court, on January 29, 1988, dismissed the action for the reason that the appeal was taken from a nonfinal order.

Upon appeal, appellant sets forth the following two assignments of error:

"I. The court below erred in its construction of O.R.C. §§ 119.12 and 3702.58. The review board's order to remand this matter to ODH [Ohio Department of Health] is appealable...