Duffield v. Memorial Hospital Ass'n of Charleston, Civ. A. No. 71-204.

• Decision Date: 17 July 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 71-204.
• Citation: 361 F. Supp. 398
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Parties: George D. DUFFIELD, Plaintiff, v. MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION OF CHARLESTON, a West Virginia corporation, and Roy R. Prangley, Administrator of Memorial Hospital Association of Charleston, a West Virginia corporation, Defendants.

361 F. Supp. 398

George D. DUFFIELD, Plaintiff, v. MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION OF CHARLESTON, a West Virginia corporation, and Roy R. Prangley, Administrator of Memorial Hospital Association of Charleston, a West Virginia corporation, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 71-204.

United States District Court, S. D. West Virginia, Charleston Division.

July 17, 1973.

John L. Boettner, Jr., Charleston, W. Va., for plaintiff.

Howard R. Klostermeyer and George G. Guthrie, of Spilman, Thomas, Battle & Klostermeyer, Charleston, W.Va., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM ORDER

K. K. HALL, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a physician licensed in West Virginia, claims that defendants arbitrarily refused to renew his staff privileges at defendant hospital, that the arbitrary action denied him rights under the due process and equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution, that he has suffered damages to his professional reputation to the extent of $500,000, and that he will suffer immediate and irreparable injury, loss and damage unless he is granted temporary and permanent injunctive relief pending determination of the issue of cause for defendants' refusal to renew his hospital staff privileges. Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1343.

Plaintiff's action was commenced on October 1, 1971, and on that date the Court granted a temporary restraining order which was later modified and extended by agreement of counsel. The temporary restraining order was vacated on September 1, 1972, at which time defendants were ordered to grant plaintiff an administrative hearing within thirty days on issues arising from defendants' refusal to renew plaintiff's staff privileges at defendant hospital. The administrative hearing was held by the Joint Conference Committee of the Charleston Area Medical Center pursuant to Article IV, Section 6, of the By-Laws, Rules and Regulations of the Medical Staff of Charleston Memorial Hospital. A record of the hearings, including three volumes of transcripts and exhibits, was made available to the parties and to the Joint Conference Committee members for review and consideration. On January 8, 1973, the Joint Conference Committee voted unanimously that plaintiff's courtesy staff privileges at the hospital be not renewed. The Committee's action was referred to the Board of Trustees of the Charleston Area Medical Center which, by resolution of January 16, 1973, unanimously declined to renew plaintiff's courtesy medical staff privileges.¹

Defendants moved, on January 18, 1973, to dismiss plaintiff's complaint, reasoning that the administrative hearing had been held and administrative action had been taken satisfying the civil rights and constitutional rights upon which plaintiff based his action and leaving no further bases for federal court jurisdiction.

On February 9, 1973, on joint motion of the parties, by counsel, the administrative hearing record was filed in Court with advices that a review of the record was "indispensable to the proper disposition of the motions pending herein."

On February 21, 1973, plaintiff filed his motion for leave to file an amended complaint, basing jurisdiction on 28 U. S.C. § 1343, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 28 U.S.C. § 2202, and "federally protected constitutional rights." On the same date plaintiff renewed his motion for a temporary and permanent injunction.

Counsel submitted memoranda and briefs in support of their respective positions on defendants' motion to dismiss and on plaintiff's motions for leave to file an amended complaint and for a preliminary and permanent injunction. At a hearing before the Court on April 26, 1973, the action was submitted for decision on the record.

Defendants' Rule 12(b) motion to dismiss the action for lack of federal jurisdiction will be broadly considered so as to include all bases of jurisdiction embraced in plaintiff's amended complaint, tendered but not yet received for filing. The Court is mindful of provisions of Rule 15 manifesting liberality in allowing amendments to pleadings when justice so requires. Likewise the Court is mindful of the provisions of Rule 12(h)(3). "Lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter is never waived, and if such lack of jurisdiction appears at any time in the case, the court must dismiss the action." Wright, Law of Federal Courts, § 66, at page 280 (1970). While the language of the complaint with reference to jurisdiction is to be broadly and liberally construed, the burden of proof remains on the party asserting jurisdiction. 5 Wright and Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 1350, at pages 551 and 555 (1969).

The complaint asserts that "plaintiff has been denied a right guaranteed to him under the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and, therefore, invokes the jurisdiction of this court under 28 U.S. C.A. § 1343." Plaintiff asserts that defendants' arbitrary action refusing to renew his "staff privileges at Charleston Memorial Hospital without good or substantial cause therefor" and the refusal of defendants to grant plaintiff a "hearing upon the withholding of said staff privileges" deny him constitutional rights for which he seeks damages and injunctive relief.

In his proposed amended complaint, plaintiff would base jurisdiction upon the following statement:

The jurisdiction and authority of this Court are invoked under the following: 28 U.S.C.A. § 1343 and 42 U.S. C.A. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C.A. § 2202; this being an action for injunctive relief and for damages to redress the deprivation by the defendants under color of law of certain federally protected constitutional rights of the plaintiff as more fully set forth herein.

Paragraphs 17 through 25 of the proposed amended complaint detail bases of his action. The statutes upon which plaintiff would base jurisdiction warrant examination.

One statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1343, gives jurisdiction to federal district courts in certain civil rights cases, but does not create or define bases or causes of action for civil rights cases. Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1972); Howell v. Cataldi, 464 F.2d 272, 274 (3rd Cir. 1972).

Another statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2202, relating to declaratory judgments, neither vests jurisdiction in a federal district court nor creates any new cause of action. The statute is procedural, providing a remedy where a cause of action already exists within the jurisdiction of the court. 10 Wright and Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2766 (1973).

The remaining statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, employed in plaintiff's statement of jurisdiction in the proposed amended complaint, is not cited or referenced as a basis of jurisdiction in the initial complaint, but obviously it is the civil rights statute upon which plaintiff's claims might find bases for a cause of action as initially stated. Decided cases disclose the statute has been many times employed as the basis for civil rights litigation when jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1343. The two statutes may be considered companions in this area of the law—one on jurisdiction—the other on creation and definition of civil rights.

In the proposed amended complaint as above quoted, plaintiff claims deprivation of "certain protected constitutional rights." Later in the proposed complaint, he refers to Amendments V, IX and XIV of the United States Constitution. Amendment V and Amendment XIV contain due process provisions. Amendment XIV also contains the equal protection provision. Amendment IX, relating to retained rights of the people, is employed in paragraph 24 of the proposed complaint as a basis upon which plaintiff claims violation of the doctorpatient relationship and "the right of privacy attended thereto." A careful examination of the record, including the transcript and exhibits, discloses no basis for actionable claims of denial of equal protection. Cf. Sams v. Ohio Valley General Hospital Association, 413 F. 2d 826 (4th Cir. 1969). Nor is any violation of any physician-patient privilege or right of privacy manifest. Cf. Young Women's Christian Association v. Kugler, 342 F.Supp. 1048 (D.N.J.1972). Memorial Hospital Association of Charleston is privately owned, operated, maintained and managed.² To the extent that any state action is involved in its operations, an overriding and compelling state interest in safeguarding and protecting the health, safety and lives of its patients and patrons generously dictates and justifies the hospital's internal management principles, practices and procedures as manifested in the record in this action.

Refined and reduced to fact and substance, plaintiff's complaint bases jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and the cause of action on 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the due process provisions of the United States Constitution. His proposed amended complaint, while more detailed and verbose, is not materially different from the initial complaint. Accordingly, defendants' motion to dismiss the action for lack of federal court jurisdiction, directed to the initial complaint and the record herein, would apply with equal force and effect to the proposed amended complaint.

After plaintiff was notified by letter of August 31, 1971, that the governing board of the hospital had recommended that he be not reappointed to the hospital's medical staff for the fiscal year commencing October 1, 1971, and after a somewhat fruitless administrative hearing on the issues before the hospital's Joint Conference Committee on September 21, 1971, at which plaintiff and his attorney were present, plaintiff obtained, on October 1, 1971, a temporary restraining order in this Court restraining defendants from withholding hospital staff privileges from plaintiff until the further order of the Court. The temporary restraining order, later modified and extended, was vacated on September 1, 1972, at which time the Court ordered defendants to grant plaintiff an...