Kochert v. Greater Lafayette Health Services, Inc.

• Decision Date: 29 December 2004
• Docket Number: No. 4:01CV0027 AS.,4:01CV0027 AS.
• Citation: 372 F.Supp.2d 509
• Parties: Carolyn G. KOCHERT, M.D., Plaintiff, v. GREATER LAFAYETTE HEALTH SERVICES, INC., d/b/a St. Elizabeth Medical Center and d/b/a Lafayette Home Hospital, Anesthesiology Associates, P.C., and John Walling, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

Page 509

372 F.Supp.2d 509

Carolyn G. KOCHERT, M.D., Plaintiff, v. GREATER LAFAYETTE HEALTH SERVICES, INC., d/b/a St. Elizabeth Medical Center and d/b/a Lafayette Home Hospital, Anesthesiology Associates, P.C., and John Walling, Defendants.

No. 4:01CV0027 AS.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, Hammond Division.

December 29, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Michael B. Brohman, Miles J. Zaremski, Ron S. Brand, Lincolnwood, IL; Randall L. Vonderheide, Lafayette, Robert P. Kinsella, Schererville, IN, for Plaintiff.

Larry R. Fisher, Stephen R. Pennell, Lafayette, IN; Andrew M. McNeil, Beth L. Riga, Judy L. Woods, Ronald E. Elberger, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ALLEN SHARP, District Judge.

On September 18, 2001, Plaintiff Dr. Carolyn Kochert, M.D., filed an amended complaint in this Court alleging various antitrust violations under both federal and state laws. On April 30, 2004, Defendant Greater Lafayette Health Services, Inc. ("GLHS") filed a Motion for Summary Judgment pursuant to Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. On that same day, Defendant Anesthesiology Associates, P.C. ("AA") filed its own motion for Summary Judgment.

This case has now been pending in this Court since 2001 and, in spite of Plaintiff's counsels' protestations to the contrary, a massive discovery effort has advanced. It is obviously the serious burden of this Court to look very carefully under Rule 56 at this record. This case has received abundant attention from this Court, including the highly qualified assistance of a United States Magistrate Judge. This Court conducted extensive proceedings in October, 2004 and entered a series of evidentiary rulings, including several challenges to expert witnesses under the Daubert standard, on or about November 15, 2004. This Court also heard oral arguments on these Motions for Summary Judgment in South Bend, Indiana for a period of over two hours on November 26, 2004.

While listening to those arguments, especially of the ones for the Plaintiff, this court could not escape the impression that either a contract case, due process case, or employment discrimination case, was being argued. The plain fact is that this case is none of the above. It is absolutely essential to revisit first principals regarding Antitrust requirements here.

When it is all said and done, and in spite of the best efforts of very able counsel, this Plaintiff has simply failed to present a jury issue under the Seventh Amendment in regards to her claims of Antitrust violation.

This Court is also aware that the bundle of rulings entered on November 15, 2004 include some limited exclusions of evidence which remain binding on the parties and which are followed here. Though the Court expressed judgments on the reliability and methodology of expert witness testimony, it did not pass judgment on whether those opinions were persuasive or sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact.

Finally, this Court is compelled to give serious notice as background and otherwise to earlier litigation spawned by Kochert in both state and federal courts. Kochert filed her first federal lawsuit in this Court in 1998 in Cause Number 4:98CV0053. She filed a complaint in the Tippecanoe Circuit Court, under Cause No. 79C01-0001-CP-0007, in January 2000. In both cases, Kochert sought to recover damages from the Defendants on various theories arising out of contract disputes with AA. In both the 1998 federal court case and the 2000 state court case, Kochert's claims against the hospital were dismissed on summary judgment.

BACKGROUND

The Plaintiff, Carolyn Kochert, M.D., first began practicing anesthesiology in Lafayette, Indiana in 1985. From 1985 to 1994, Kochert practiced anesthesia at both Lafayette Home Hospital ("HH") and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center ("SEMC"). On August 9, 1994, Defendant Anesthesia Associates ("AA") and HH entered into a contract for AA to be the exclusive provider of anesthesia services at HH. After being offered the exclusive services contract for anesthesia services at HH, AA offered each anesthesiologist with current privileges at HH a subcontract to provide anesthesia services at HH. Kochert was given such a subcontract. At some point during 1998, AA's Board of Directors voted not to renew Kochert's subcontract with AA after its expiration in February 1998. In 1998, HH and SEMC merged and GLHS took over administration of both hospitals at the end of that year. In April 1999, the labor and delivery unit at SEMC was closed. At the beginning of 2001, GLHS contracted with AA to provide anesthesia services at SEMC beginning on June 1, 2001.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is proper if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with any affidavits, show that there exists no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Bragg v. Navistar Int'l Trans. Corp., 164 F.3d 373 (7th Cir.1998). Celotex addressed the initial burdens of the parties under Rule 56, and Anderson addressed the standards under which the record is to be analyzed within the structure of Rule 56.

The initial burden is on the moving party to demonstrate, "with or without supporting affidavits," the absence of a genuine issue of material fact and that judgment as a matter of law should be granted in the moving party's favor. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548 (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56); Larimer v. Dayton Hudson Corp., 137 F.3d 497 (7th Cir.1998). A question of material fact is a question which will be outcome determinative of an issue in the case. The Supreme Court has instructed that the facts material in a specific case shall be determined by the substantive law controlling the given case or issue. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505. Once the moving party has met the initial burden, the opposing party must "go beyond the pleadings" and "designate `specific facts shows that there is a genuine [material] issue for trial.'" Id. The nonmoving party cannot rest on its pleadings, Weicherding v. Riegel, 160 F.3d 1139 (7th Cir. 1998); Waldridge v. American Hoechst Corp., 24 F.3d 918 (7th Cir.1994); nor may that party rely upon conclusory allegations in affidavits. Smith v. Shawnee Library Sys., 60 F.3d 317, 320 (7th Cir.1995).

During its summary judgment analysis, the court must construe the facts and draw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Bombard v. Fort Wayne Newspapers, Inc., 92 F.3d 560 (7th Cir.1996). Furthermore, it is required to analyze summary judgment motions under the standard of proof relevant to the case or issue. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252-55, 106 S.Ct. 2505. Applying the above standard, this Court will now address the present motions.

DISCUSSION

I. ANTITRUST STANDING

Kochert seeks to recover damages under Section 4 of the Clayton Act, for alleged violations of Section 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Both antitrust injury and standing are necessary to proceed under Section 4. Greater Rockford Energy and Technology Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 998 F.2d 391, 395 (7th Cir.1993). "It is now well settled that in order to have standing to prosecute private antitrust claims, plaintiffs must show more than the defendants' conduct caused them an injury." Balaklaw v. Lovell, 14 F.3d 793, 797 (2d Cir.1994). Instead, "[p]laintiffs must prove an antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendant's acts unlawful." Id.; accord Indiana Grocery v. Super Valu Stores, Inc., 864 F.2d 1409, 1416 (7th Cir.1989). Kochert has not suffered an antitrust injury and therefore she does not have antitrust standing.

Kochert has conceded that the non-renewal of her contract in 1998 did not cause her to sustain any antitrust injury. Kochert Memo. in Opposition to Defendants' Rule 12 Motions to Dismiss at p. 35. Instead, Kochert contends that there was "a sequence of events that, when combined, creates anti-competitive concerns that might not have been present had those three events not been combined." Kochert Brief p. 7. Kochert contends that a combination of the nonrenewal of her subcontract by AA, the consolidation of the OB unit at SEMC with the OB unit at HH in April 1999, and awarding the exclusive contract to SEMC to AA in June 2001 form the basis of her antitrust claim. Kochert was no longer in the business of providing anesthesia services by June 1, 2001, however. Kochert had opened her own pain management practice and was doing pain management on a full time basis by August 1, 2000. Therefore, Kochert could not have sustained any antitrust injury which was caused by GLHS's decision to award the exclusive contract at SEMC to AA in June 2001. See Reddy v. Good Samaritan Hosp. & Health Ctr., 137 F.Supp.2d 948, 967 (S.D.Ohio 2000). This fact is confirmed by Kochert's damages expert, Hoffman, who determined that all of Kochert's damages were caused by the nonrenewal of her subcontract with AA in 1998.

Furthermore, Kochert fails to establish an antitrust injury because the injury alleged was not the type of injury the antitrust laws were intended to prevent. To sustain an antitrust injury there must be more than mere harm to a competitor. Rather, there must be harm to competition. The Supreme Court has stated that the plaintiff's injury must be "an injury caused by anti-competitive behavior as opposed to mere economic loss." Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 488-89, 97 S.Ct. 690, 50 L.Ed.2d 701 (1977). Kochert's alleged injuries are to her as a competitor, not injuries to competition.

Kochert is unable to show direct...