Wallace v. University Hospitals of Cleveland
| Decision Date | 08 February 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 36621,36621 |
| Citation | 172 N.E.2d 459,171 Ohio St. 487 |
| Parties | , 14 O.O.2d 383 WALLACE, Appellant, v. UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS OF CLEVELAND, Appellee. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
John G. Pegg, John H. Bustamante and Walton C. Jackson, Cleveland, for appellant.
Arter, Hadden, Wykoff & Van Duzer and C. M. Horn, Cleveland, for appellee.
It is obvious that the plaintiff has obtained all that she asks for in this action and no order could be made by this court that would give her more than she already has. As between these parties, therefore, the case is moot.
Although the majority of the court feels bound to sustain the motion to dismiss, it does so reluctantly for the reason that a repetition of the procedure followed here may effectively prevent this court from ever reaching a question that it considers of public and great general interest
In any other case, when a request therefor is made, a hospital may permit a former patient to see such of his records as the hospital deems to be in the beneficial interest of that patient. If unsatisfied with what he considers only half a loaf, that former patient may commence an action to require the furnishing of the entire record. The court in which such action is instituted, or a Court of Appeals, could well follow the decision of the Court of Appeals herein to deny a mandatory injunction. If this court then still believed there was a debatable constitutional question involved, and that there was in the case a question of public or great general interest, it would overrule a motion to dismiss the appeal as of right and allow the motion to certify the record. And again the case pending in this court could be rendered moot by the hospital's mere furnishing to the plaintiff of his complete hospital record.
In 132 A.L.R. 1186, it is stated:
'The proposition that an appellate court may retain an appeal for hearing and determination if it involves questions of public interest even though it has become moot so far as the parties of the particular action are concerned or though the parties desire that it be dismissed, is supported, either directly or by implication, by the great weight of authority.
Although the temptation may be great to indulge in the theory that a case may be 'moot as to the parties' but not 'moot as to the public,' as did the court in Van DeVegt v. Board of Com'rs of Larimer County, 98 Colo. 161, 55 P.2d 703, 710, where the court said that 'a case is not moot where interests of a...
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Althof v. Ohio State Bd. of Psychology, 2007 Ohio 1010 (Ohio App. 3/8/2007)
...the relief sought before the completion of the law suit, the action is moot and the case is dismissed"); Wallace v. University Hospitals of Cleveland (1961), 171 Ohio St. 487, 488 (observing that "the plaintiff has obtained all that she asks for in this action and no order could be made by ......
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Popp, In re
...Ink v. Plott (1960), 175 N.E.2d 94; Overesch v. Campbell (1953), 95 Ohio App. 359, 119 N.E.2d 848. In Wallace v. University Hospitals of Cleveland (1961), 171 Ohio St. 487, 172 N.E.2d 459, the Supreme Court dealt with a motion to dismiss an appeal for mootness. The court first quoted from 1......
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Mattie L. Vaughn, M.D. v. the State Medical Board of Ohio
..."has obtained all that she asks for *** and no order could be made by this court that would give her more than she already has." Wallace, supra, at 488-489. argues that she would benefit from our holding that the fifteen-month limit is unconstitutional because, absent & further stay pending......
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State ex rel. Beacon Journal Pub. Co. v. Kainrad
...the case. Under such circumstances, the court has discretion whether to invoke the mootness doctrine. Wallace v. University Hospitals of Cleveland (1961), 171 Ohio St. 487, 172 N.E.2d 459. This point is best illustrated by reference to In re Popp (1972), 33 Ohio App.2d 22, 292 N.E.2d 330 (r......