Osuagwu v. Gila Reg'l Med. Ctr.
| Citation | 938 F.Supp.2d 1180 |
| Decision Date | 25 February 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 11cv001 MV/SMV.,11cv001 MV/SMV. |
| Parties | Chinonyerem OSUAGWU, Plaintiff, v. GILA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER; Jean Remillard, M.D.; Gregory Koury, M.D.; Michael Sergeant, M.D.; Mark Donnell, M.D.; Ronald Deyhle, M.D.; Don White, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Chinonyerem Osuagwu, Albuquerque, NM, pro se.
Candace J. Cavanaugh, Butt Thornton & Baehr PC, Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant Gila Regional.
Kevin J. Banville, Seth Sparks, Shannon Sherrell, Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P.A., Albuquerque, NM, for the Individual Defendants.
ORDER DENYING MOTIONS TO DISMISS and GRANTING and DENYING SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN PART
THIS MATTER is before the Court on Defendant/Physicians Jean Remillard's, Gregory Koury's, Michael Sergeant's, Mark Donnell's, and Don White's joint Motion to Dismiss, filed August 1, 2012 [Doc. 123], brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6); on their joint Motion for Summary Judgment, filed November 12, 2012 [Doc. 168] 1; and on that part of pro se Plaintiff Dr. Chinonyerem Osuagwu's Motion for Summary Judgment seeking judgment against these Defendants filed August 23, 2012 [Doc. 135]. I will also address the arguments the individual Defendants presented in their cross-motion for summary judgment filed on October 9, 2012 [Doc. 160]. I temporarily bifurcated both the Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and the Defendants' cross-motion for summary judgment for the purposes of resolving Docs. 135 and 160 as to Gila Regional only, and granted summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff and against Gila Regional on Plaintiff's § 1983 claims for violation of his due-process rights. See December 21, 2012 Memorandum Opinion and Order (“Opinion”) at 1 (Doc. 198). I have also recently dismissed Defendants Sergeant, Donnell, and Deyhle from this case, see February 25, 2013 Opinion (Doc. 215), and will not address any arguments related to them that are now moot.
The individual Defendants seek dismissal of Plaintiff's federal claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on alleged expiration of the statute of limitations, and, except for Dr. Remillard, seek dismissal of Plaintiff's state-law claims for the same reason. They also contend that Plaintiff fails to state a claim against any Defendant for violations of state law. All Defendants also assert qualified immunity on the contention that it is not clearly established Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit law that Plaintiff had a constitutionally-protected property interest in his guaranteed-income contract and medical privileges granted by Gila Regional Hospital. Having considered the parties' submissions, the record, and the applicable law, I will deny the Defendants' motions in part and grant them in part, and will grant Plaintiff's motion in part and deny it in part.
sued Gila Regional and several individuals under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for damages and injunctive relief, alleging violation of his due-process rights, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He alleges that Gila Regional, through the actions and conduct of Don White (the Chairman of its Board of Trustees); Dr. Jean Remillard (its Chief Medical Officer); the individual members of its internal Peer Review Committee (“PRC”); the members of its Medical Executive Committee (“MEC”); the members of its Fair Hearing Committee (“FHC” or “panel”); and Ronald [Deyhle], an Outside Peer Reviewer, violated his civil rights when, without a reasonable belief that their actions were warranted by known facts, without a reasonable effort to obtain facts, and without following the process due to Plaintiff, the MEC and Board of Trustees temporarily and then indefinitely suspended his medical privileges and imposed harsh requirements for regaining those privileges, and Dr. Remillard filed notice of that adverse action with the National Practitioner Databank and the New Mexico Medical Board. Plaintiff also contends that the Defendants have tortiously damaged his reputation and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
Osuagwu v. Gila Reg'l Med. Ctr., 850 F.Supp.2d 1216, 1219 (D.N.M.2012) (Doc. 94) (footnote omitted).
The Plaintiff filed his original Complaint on January 3, 2011, and he filed an Amended Complaint as a matter of right on January 10, 2011. See Docs. 1, 7. The first Scheduling Order permitted Plaintiff “to join additional parties and amend the pleadings” by July 13, 2011. June 28, 2011 Scheduling Order at 1 (Doc. 39). On July 13, 2011, Plaintiff filed a motion to amend his Amended Complaint to add the individual Defendants as additional parties, attaching a copy of the proposed Second Amended Complaint. See Doc. 43. Gila Regional objected. I did not rule on this motion, however, until February 24, 2012. As I noted in granting the motion to amend,
Plaintiff's allegations included claims that Defendant Gila Regional Medical Center, through the actions and conduct of the Chairman and another member of its Board of Trustees, individual members of its internal Peer Review Committee, members of its Medical Executive Committee (“MEC”), and members of the Fair Hearing Committee and an Outside Peer Reviewer, violated his civil rights. But the only specific names mentioned in the Amended Complaint were Jean Remillard, who was Gila Regional's Chief Medical Officer, see Doc. 7 at ¶¶ 62, 70; Dr. Donnell, the Hearing Officer who presided over the “Fair Hearing,” id. at ¶ 67; Dr. Donald Montoya, a member of the Board of Trustees, see id. at ¶ 80; and Mr. Baca, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, see id. at ¶ 89. In the first amended complaint, Plaintiff stated that he may desireto substitute these individuals and/or others as named defendants in another amended complaint when he discovered more information....
After the parties engaged in discovery, Plaintiff filed his motion to substitute named defendants for the John and Jane Does and to state additional facts in support of his claims. Gila Regional opposes the motion, contending that amendment would be futile because it and the individuals who participated in the decisions leading to the withdrawal of the Plaintiff's medical privileges at Gila Regional and to filing notice of its adverse actions against Plaintiff with the National Practitioner Databank and the New Mexico Board of Medical Examiners are immune from suit under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 11101–11152.
Feb. 24, 2012 Opinion at 1–2 (Doc. 86). All of the individual Defendants, except for Dr. Deyhle, are either officers of Gila Regional, or served on the various committees and Boards of Gila Regional referenced in the Amended Complaint. A week after I granted the motion, Plaintiff formally filed his Second Amended Complaint. See Doc. 90. Plaintiff filed returns indicating that he served all of the new Defendants by April 21, 2012, and the Court issued a new Scheduling Order on May 24, 2012. See Doc. 113. The parties have engaged in additional discovery, which ended on November 19, 2012. The Court recently granted the individual Defendants' untimely motions to amend their answers to add an additional affirmative defense. See December 10, 2012 Order (Doc. 191).
The parties have submitted additional documentation into the record. None of the documentation, with a few exceptions discussed in my December 21, 2012 Opinion, calls into question the undisputed facts, findings, and conclusions set forth in the March 27, 2012 Opinion, the December 21, 2012 Opinion, and the February 25, 2013 Opinion, thus I adopt and incorporate those facts, findings, and conclusions. The undisputed facts relevant to the issues raised in the Defendants' motions to dismiss and for summary judgment at bar are as follows.
Plaintiff had a written contract to provide OB/GYN medical services to Gila Regional for two years, beginning February 15, 2008, with a guaranteed income of at least $265,000/year, which could only be terminated either by mutual consent or “for cause-specified.” Doc. 162, Ex. GGG at 1. As a necessary adjunct of the contract, Gila Regional granted medical privileges to Plaintiff, see Doc. 160 at 13, ¶ 3, and both parties agreed to be bound by Gila Regional's Bylaws, which included mandatory procedures for physician discipline or suspension of privileges, see id. at 14–15, ¶ 10. Under the Bylaws, if the MEC made a recommendation that could permanently adversely affect a physician's clinical privileges, the Board could not take action on the recommendations “until after the procedural rights provided in Art. VIII have been provided.” Doc. 162–1 at 10 ¶¶ 7.1–6, Ex. JJJ.....
....
Critically, section 7.2–1 of the Bylaws provides that, if the MEC summarily suspended a physician, the suspension would “automatically expire if not at the end of fourteen (14) days extended by action of the MEC pursuant to [subsection 7.2–2].” Doc. 162–1 at 10, ¶ 7.2–1. Subsection 7.2–2 mandated the MEC to “interview the practitioner affected by the summary suspension,” within 5 days of that suspension and to inform him of its specific basis, including a written statement and summary “of at least one or more particular incidents giving rise to the assessment of imminent danger” “demonstrating that failure to suspend could have reasonably resulted in an imminent danger to the health of an individual,” and giving the practitioner “an opportunity to discuss, explain, or refute the facts that made the basis of the suspension.” Id. at 10–11, ¶ 7.2.2. As noted previously, the MEC never gave Plaintiff an opportunity to explain or comment on those two incidents, in violation of the Bylaws. See Doc. 160 at 4, ¶ 4. In its notice to Plaintiff, the MEC only referred to two unspecified “diagnostic laparoscopi[c] procedures recently performed by you,” and informed him that “[t]hese incidents will be investigated by the Peer Review Committee.”...
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