Gruber v. Lincoln Hospital Dist.
| Decision Date | 16 January 1979 |
| Citation | 285 Or. 3,588 P.2d 1281 |
| Parties | Matthew GRUBER, Appellant, v. LINCOLN HOSPITAL DISTRICT, an Oregon Municipal Corporation, and Richard A. Bond, Respondents. TC 36363; SC 25339. |
| Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
Thomas B. Brand, of Brand, Lee, Ferris & Embick, Salem, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief was Matthew Gruber pro se.
Paul B. Osterlund, Toledo, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was George W. Henderson, Toledo.
The Lincoln Health District, named in the complaint as the Lincoln Hospital District, is a municipal corporation organized pursuant to ORS 440.305-440.410 for the purpose of providing facilities for the care of sick and injured persons. Plaintiff filed suit to invalidate a contract the district allegedly had entered into with a physician. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the first amended complaint on a number of grounds, including failure to join the physician as a party. Plaintiff then filed a second amended complaint identical to the first except for the addition of the doctor as a defendant. On defendants' motion, the trial court struck this complaint in its entirety, and plaintiff appeals.
Although technically the order striking the complaint rested on the different premise that the complaint contained no new matter, See Bliss v. Southern Pacific Co., 212 Or. 634, 653, 321 P.2d 324 (1958), defendants have waived any objection to considering the appeal as being from the decision sustaining the demurrer to the first amended complaint.
In that demurrer, defendant Health District challenged the complaint on the ground, among others, that plaintiff had not alleged any substantial interest in a justiciable controversy. If the trial court's ruling in favor of defendant on this issue was correct, the judgment must be affirmed without reaching the other issues in dispute.
The complaint contained the following relevant allegations: Plaintiff is a "resident and inhabitant" and a "taxpayer" residing within the boundaries of the district. Under a "service agreement" entered into by the district and defendant Dr. Bond, the district agreed to provide office space equipment, and supporting staff for Dr. Bond, and the doctor agreed to perform managerial and medical services on behalf of the district. The district was to bill and collect charges for the doctor's professional services and pay over to him each month 50% Of the first $3,000 of the gross billings for the previous month, 60% Of the next $3,000, and 70% Of any additional amounts, retaining for itself the corresponding 50%, 40%, and 30% Remainders of the gross billings "as compensation to District for providing to Doctor the facility, equipment, supplies, services and personnel."
The complaint attacked the legality of this arrangement on three grounds: First, that it violated a rule of professional ethics of the American Medical Association said to have been adopted by the district's staff and approved by the district's board of directors, second, that it placed the district in the role of collection agency without the license required by ORS 697.010 et seq., and third, that it put the district in the position of financing a private enterprise in violation of article XI, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. 1 The prayer was for a declaration that the contract was "illegal, invalid, and void," ordering defendant not to carry out the terms of the contract, and allowing such other relief as the court might deem proper.
The present action is brought under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, ORS chapter 28. ORS 28.020 provides:
Any person interested under a deed, will, written contract or other writing constituting a contract, or whose rights, status or other legal relations are affected by a constitution, statute, municipal charter, ordinance, contract or franchise may have determined any question of construction or validity arising under any such instrument, constitution, statute, municipal charter, ordinance, contract or franchise and obtain a declaration of rights, status or other legal relations thereunder.
Thus a complaint under this section must show how plaintiff's "rights, status, or other legal relations are affected" by an instrument or enactment, the construction or validity of which he seeks to have determined. Standing under this section has been denied when the showing of the required effect has been too speculative or entirely missing. See, e. g., Gortmaker v. Seaton, 252 Or. 440, 443, 450 P.2d 547 (1969); Eacret v. Holmes, 215 Or. 121, 125, 333 P.2d 741 (1958); Hale v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., 209 Or. 99, 103-104, 302 P.2d 1010 (1956). Though the present complaint described plaintiff as a "resident and inhabitant of that area encompassed by the geographical limits" of the district and as a "taxpayer residing within said Lincoln Hospital district," nothing further is said that bears on a person's rights, status, or other legal relations consequent upon residency within the territory of the district. We do not say that there may not be such consequences of residency that might support a person's standing to seek judicial review of some action of the district, but neither plaintiff's complaint nor his brief refers to them. Rather, plaintiff places his reliance on his right as a taxpayer to challenge the misuse of public funds.
"Taxpayer" status has its own logical problems. As a basis for standing to demand non-financial remedies against alleged maladministration, it may be only a fig leaf for the kind of "public action" defended by Professor Louis Jaffe. See Bittker, The Case of the Fictitious Taxpayer: The Federal Taxpayer's Suit Twenty Years After Flast v. Cohen, 36 U.Chi.L.Rev....
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THUNDERBIRD MOBILE CLUB v. WILSONVILLE
...missing.'" Vannatta v. Oregon Government Ethics Comm., 347 Or. 449, 470, 222 P.3d 1077 (2009) (quoting Gruber v. Lincoln Hospital District, 285 Or. 3, 7, 588 P.2d 1281 (1979)). Thus, in identifying how its rights, status, or other legal relations are affected, a plaintiff "must show some in......
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League of Oregon Cities v. State
...(1988). In addition, the plaintiff's showing of that injury or other impact must not be "too speculative." Gruber v. Lincoln Hospital District, 285 Or. 3, 7, 588 P.2d 1281 (1979). With those requirements in mind, we turn to the evidence of injury or other impact that plaintiffs offered befo......
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Utsey v. Coos County
...courts have defined a "practical effect on the rights of the parties" by what is not sufficient. See, e.g., Gruber v. Lincoln Hospital District, 285 Or. 3, 8, 588 P.2d 1281 (1979) (a taxpayer who alleged only an interest in the proper expenditure of public funds did not have standing to cha......
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Eckles v. State
...that the challenged government action would have an effect on his taxes was held to have no standing, Gruber v. Lincoln Hospital District, 285 Or. 3, 8, 588 P.2d 1281 (1979), and parents whose son had been murdered had no standing to obtain a declaration setting forth limits on the Governor......
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Chapter § 11.2
...'actual or potential adverse fiscal consequences' to the plaintiff personally") (quoting Gruber v. Lincoln Hospital District, 285 Or 3, 8, 588 P2d 1281 (1979)). Challengers also frequently fail to establish standing as taxpayers because they do not allege (or, when opposing a motion for sum......
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Chapter §11.2 STANDING TO SUE
...or potential adverse fiscal consequences upon the plaintiff," but no more. Thus, as in Gruber [v. Lincoln Hospital District, 285 Or 3, 6, 588 P2d 1281 (1979)], there is in this case no allegation of fact from which a reasonable inference could be made as to how defendants' alleged misconduc......