Tatkin v. Superior Court In and For Los Angeles County
| Decision Date | 23 May 1958 |
| Citation | 160 Cal.App.2d 745,326 P.2d 201 |
| Parties | Sylvan Oscar TATKIN, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of State of California in and for the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent. Los Angeles County Medical Association, etc., et al., Real Parties in Interest. Div. 22953. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Wyman & Finell, Beverly Hills, for petitioner.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Frederick O. Field, O'Melveny & Myers, Leslie G. Turner, Warren M. Christopher, Carl J. Schuck, Los Angeles, for real parties in interest.
Petitioner, plaintiff in an action pending in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, seeks a writ of mandate directing the respondent court to set aside an order sustaining defendants' refusal to answer certain questions in a pre-trial deposition and to enter an order compelling defendants to answer these questions.
Demurrers having been overruled, a third amended complaint was filed and the defendants, American Medical Association, Los Angeles County Medical Association, and certain named individuals, have filed their answers thereto.
The third amended complaint of plaintiff contains three causes of action and alleges generally that since August 1, 1953, plaintiff has been and is a duly licensed doctor of medicine authorized to practice medicine in the State of California; that on September 21, 1954, plaintiff was notified that his application for membership in the defendant Los Angeles Medical Association had been refused; that since then he has suffered damages as a result of the acts and conduct of defendants. The plaintiff has affirmatively alleged that the defendants have conspired and combined to dominate and control the practice of medicine in Los Angeles County in such a manner as to prevent competition between licensed doctors in the area and members of the defendant Los Angeles County Medical Association particularly when the licensed doctor has come from out of state; that pursuant to this conspiracy and combination, the defendant Los Angeles Medical Association has established a minimum scale of fees to be charged for services rendered by its members to the public; that pursuant to the said conspiracy and combination, the defendants have not left open membership in the defendant Los Angeles Medical Association to doctors of medicine of even the highest professional and ethical qualifications; that defendants have established disciplinary sanctions against members of the defendant Los Angeles County Medical Association who consult with or cooperate with doctors of medicine who are not members of the defendant association; and that pursuant to the said conspiracy and combination, a grading system of hospitals has been set up, the result of which is that only members of the defendant Los Angeles County Medical Association are eligible for membership on the staffs of over 90 per cent of the hospitals in the Los Angeles County area.
Plaintiff further alleges that his professional and ethical qualifications are of the highest calibre; that he was, prior to August 1, 1953, when he came to Los Angeles County, a member of the Yakima County Medical Association, Yakima, Washington; that while practicing in Los Angeles County, he has at all times charged fees for treatment lower than those prescribed as minimum by the defendant Los Angeles Medical Association; that he made his services available to the public at a greater number of hours per day and days per week than the members of the defendant association practicing in his community; that he applied for, and was denied, membership in the defendant Los Angeles Medical Association without any reasons having been given for his rejection; that thereafter he was expelled from the staff of the Behrens Memorial Hospital even though his services had been completely satisfactory; that when he attempted to construct a hospital of his own in the community in which he practiced the members of the defendant Los Angeles County Medical Association refused to cooperate with him in any way, and actively took steps to make the construction impossible by opposing the granting of a zoning variance by the city commission.
Plaintiff caused a subpoena duces tecum to be issued to defendant William F. Quinn, secretary-treasurer of defendant Los Angeles County Medical Association, requiring him to appear for deposition and to produce the following: All letters written by any member of the Los Angeles County Medical Association or Yakima County Medical Association or by any officer of either association regarding Dr. Sylvan O. Tatkin; all investigation report or reports by investigator or investigators regarding the professional, personal, ethical or moral background of Dr. Sylvan O. Tatkin; all documents presented to the council of the Los Angeles County Medical Association at any meeting pertaining to any application of Dr. Sylvan O. Tatkin for membership or used by the council or any member thereof in connection with the determination of Dr. Sylvan O. Tatkin's qualification for membership in the Los Angeles County Medical Association; all other books, records, papers, documents and files of every type or nature whatsoever obtained by the Los Angeles County Medical Association in connection with its deliberations on Dr. Sylvan O. Tatkin's application for membership in the Los Angeles County Medical Association.
Quinn, on advice of counsel, refused to answer any and all questions put to him concerning the criteria, rules, regulations or policies of the defendant Los Angeles County Medical Association in passing on membership applications and all questions put to him concerning the consideration of plaintiff's application for membership. He also refused to produce any of the documents subpoenaed, as the documents dealt with the same subject matter as the questions, and both the documents and the questions were objected to on the ground of irrelevancy and immateriality.
The defendant's refusal to answer was thereupon duly certified to respondent court resulting in an order to answer questions numbered one and two but sustaining objections to the remaining 21 questions.
Since an appeal from the final judgment would not afford plaintiff an adequate remedy for correcting the order of respondent court sustaining said defendant's refusal to answer the questions on deposition, mandamus is the proper remedy. I. E. S. Corporation v. Superior Court, 44 Cal.2d 559, 564, 283 P.2d 700; McClatchy Newspapers v. Superior Court, 26 Cal.2d 386, 392, 159 P.2d 944.
As was said in the McClatchy case (26 Cal.2d at pages 393, 394, 395, 159 P.2d at page 948): 'Ordinarily the trial court has no discretion to refuse to exercise its powers so far as necessary to secure to a litigant the right to a deposition in the cases defined by the code. (Citations.) The language of section 2021 of the Code of Civil Procedure providing that 'The testimony of a witness * * * may be taken by deposition' confers upon litigants the right to take depositions. (Citation.) * * * By refusing to compel a witness to answer proper questions, a trial court may effectively deny a litigant the right to take a deposition, since a right without means of enforcement, if such can exist, is of little practical value. Consequently, trial courts have been directed by writ of mandate to compel witnesses to answer questions on the taking of their depositions on the theory that it is their judicial duty to secure to a party the means of obtaining in advance of the trial information concerning the issues and the means of producing at the trial the evidence necessary to sustain his action or defense. (Citations.) * * *
And as said in I. E. S. Corporation v. Superior Court, supra, 44 Cal.2d 559, at pages 562, 563, 283 P.2d 700, at page 703: 'In the interest of full disclosure, the witness in a deposition taken pursuant to section 2021, subd. 1, of the Code of Civil Procedure must answer all questions seeking nonprivileged information that is material to the subject matter of the pending action (citations), and he cannot block the interrogation by contending that it is a 'fishing expedition' or by urging the secrecy of his methods of doing business. At the same time, the taking of a deposition must not be abused (citation), and the witness need not answer questions that serve no proper purpose or are irrelevant. (Citations.) * * *
'* * * Similarly, plaintiff was entitled to learn the sources of the goods to determine whether they were sold to defendant in the condition and at the prices represented and whether the sellers had conspired with...
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