Wong v. Stripling

• Decision Date: 11 September 1997
• Docket Number: Nos. 94-CA-01095-SC,07-CA-58994-SCT,s. 94-CA-01095-SC
• Citation: 700 So.2d 296
• Parties: Sidney WONG, M.D. v. John STRIPLING, M.D.; Thomas Hewes, M.D.; Hans Adams, M.D.; The Estate of L. V. Johnston; Don Hopkins, M.D.; William Atchison, M.D.; William Hopper, M.D.; Garden Park Community Hospital, Inc.; Thomas Blanks, M.D.; Victor T. Bazzone, M.D.; Hazel Portwood, Michael Matthews, D.L. Clippinger, M.D. and American Medical International, Inc.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 296

700 So.2d 296

Sidney WONG, M.D. v. John STRIPLING, M.D.; Thomas Hewes, M.D.; Hans Adams M.D.; The Estate of L. V. Johnston; Don Hopkins, M.D. William Atchison, M.D.; William Hopper, M.D.; Garden Park Community Hospital, Inc.; Thomas Blanks, M.D.; Victor T Bazzone, M.D.; Hazel Portwood, Michael Matthews, D.L Clippinger, M.D. and American Medical International, Inc.

Nos. 94-CA-01095-SCT, 07-CA-58994-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Sept. 11, 1997.

Marynell L. Piglia, Michael R. Allweiss, Lowe Stein Hoffman Allweiss & Hauver, New Orleans; Pete Halat, Biloxi, for Appellant.

Robert H. Pedersen, James A. Becker, Jr., Watkins & Eager, Jackson, for Appellees.

Before SULLIVAN, P.J., and PITTMAN and BANKS, JJ.

BANKS, Justice, for the Court:

¶1 In this case we consider the propriety of a summary judgment dismissing the numerous civil claims a physician brought against a hospital that had decided to revoke his surgical privileges. The physician's claims included breach of contract, tortious interference with business relations, violations of due process rights, violations of the right to counsel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Because we find that the adverse summary judgment was proper on this record, we affirm.

I.

¶2 Dr. Sidney Wong served as a member of the medical staff of Garden Park Hospital, a private hospital in Harrison County, Mississippi from April 1979 until December 1984, when his staff privileges were suspended by the executive committee of the Hospital. His privileges were permanently revoked and terminated in April, 1985, because of numerous ¶3 Dr. Wong first challenged the revocation of his privileges by taking an appeal to the Appellate Review Committee at the hospital, which affirmed the revocation decision. Immediately thereafter, Dr. Wong filed a Complaint for Judicial Appeal in the Chancery Court of Harrison County, in which he challenged the revocation decision and the administrative procedures that produced that decision. He named only the Hospital as a defendant, and alleged that the charges against him did not constitute conduct for which a physician could be lawfully disciplined and that he was denied due process. The Chancery Court upheld the decision of the Hospital Appellate Review Committee and found that Dr. Wong had been afforded due process. Dr. Wong appealed that decision to this Court, which affirmed the Chancery Court's decision. Wong v. Garden Park Community Hospital, 565 So.2d 550 (Miss.1990). This Court found that Dr. Wong had been afforded the due process to which he was entitled, since the Hospital had complied with the procedural requirements of its bylaws in suspending and revoking Dr. Wong's privileges.

complaints including complaints about his manner and his competence; the improper removal of food from the cafeteria; the improper admittance of a patient; his unprofessionally discourteous conduct toward a patient; his failure to adequately examine a patient; his failure to cooperate with hospital personnel regarding consultation requests and patient complaints; and his having urged a patient sue the hospital. This appeal arises out of the third lawsuit that Dr. Wong has pressed since the revocation of his privileges.

¶4 In 1985 while his appeal in this Court was pending, Dr. Wong filed a second action in federal district court, naming fourteen defendants, comprised of several doctors who were directly involved in the decision to revoke his privileges, the Hospital, and the hospital's majority stockholder, American Medical International, Inc., which also managed the Hospital (hereinafter "AMI"). He alleged that these defendants had violated his federal due process rights under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985. He additionally sought a declaration that Mississippi's statutory scheme governing private hospitals was unconstitutional, as well as damages under state law for breach of contract, tortious interference with business relations, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

¶5 On July 7, 1988, the federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the federal claims, and dismissed the state law claims without prejudice. In so doing, the court found that Miss.Code Ann. § 73-25-93, the provision which governs hospital boards' decisions regarding the privileges of their physicians, did not violate any constitutional proscriptions. The court further found that the Hospital was not a state actor, and thus its suspension of Dr. Wong could not be considered state action within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985. After concluding that Dr. Wong had no viable federal claim, the court dismissed his state law claims without prejudice. Dr. Wong appealed this decision to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which affirmed the district court judgment. Wong v. Stripling, 881 F.2d 200 (5th Cir.1989).

¶6 Dr. Wong next filed this, his third action, in the Circuit Court of Harrison County. He named the same defendants as were named in the previous federal court action. Dr. Wong had also added the State of Mississippi as a defendant. Dr. Wong's amended complaint made the following claims: (1) tortious interference with business relations; (2) breach of contract based on the Hospital's bylaws; (3) defamation, when three of the defendants wrote "poor" or "fair" performance evaluations of Dr. Wong's work, which were then published to another entity with whom Dr. Wong was seeking employment; (4) violation of federal antitrust law; (5) intentional infliction of severe emotional distress; (6) violation of his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment; (7) violation of his due process rights under the Mississippi Constitution; (8) violation of his right to counsel during his suspension and revocation hearings; and (9) that Miss.Code Ann. § 73-25-93 was unconstitutional.

¶7 The defendants removed the action back into the federal district court. That ¶8 The remaining defendants next moved for summary judgment on three of the nine claims. The court granted the motion, finding that Dr. Wong's federal due process claim (claim # 6 above) and his claim that Miss.Code Ann. § 73-25-93 was unconstitutional (claim # 9) were barred by the doctrine of res judicata, having been decided against him in the previous federal action. The court further granted the defendants' summary judgment motion on Dr. Wong's defamation claim, finding that the statements in question were opinions and thus immune from a defamation suit. The court denied Dr. Wong's motion to reconsider that ruling, and Dr. Wong apparently did not appeal it any further.

court dismissed the State of Mississippi as a defendant since, first, it is immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment and the doctrine of sovereign immunity, and second, because the previous federal litigation had determined that there had been no state action involved in the decision to suspend and terminate Dr. Wong's privileges.

¶9 The court next considered the defendants' second motion for summary judgment on the remaining issues, the antitrust claim and the state law claims. The court granted summary judgment on the federal antitrust claim, since Dr. Wong informed the court in his brief on the motion that he would not contest the dismissal of his antitrust claim. The court then declined to adjudicate the motion with regard to the remaining state law claims, and instead remanded them back the Harrison County Circuit Court.

¶10 Back again in circuit court, the defendants next moved for summary judgment on the remaining six claims in two separate motions. The circuit court granted the defendants summary judgment on all of the claims, analyzing the issues as follows:

(1) Dr. Wong's claim that his state right to due process (claim # 7 above) was meritless because the federal district court had previously found that his termination involved no state action which would implicate the state constitutional right to due process.

(2) Dr. Wong's claim that his termination process was in violation of his right to counsel (claim # 8) was meritless because his termination proceedings were neither criminal in nature nor before a "tribunal in the state," the only circumstances in which the Mississippi Constitution guarantees him any right to counsel.

(3) Dr. Wong's claim that the individual defendants and defendant AMI breached a contract with him (part of claim # 2) was meritless because the undisputed material facts revealed the Hospital bylaws, upon which Dr. Wong was relying upon as the contract at issue, were signed by the president of the medical staff on behalf of the Executive Committee of the medical staff as one party and by the Chairman of the Hospital's board of directors as the other party. Since there was no privity of contract between Dr. Wong and these defendants, Dr. Wong could not prevail on this claim.

(4) Dr. Wong's claim that Hospital defendant breached the contract that had been formed by the bylaws (claim # 2) was barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel because the Harrison County Chancery Court had already found that the Hospital had abided by its the bylaws in the process of terminating Dr. Wong's privileges. That decision was affirmed by this Court. Wong v. Garden Park, 565 So.2d 550. Since Dr. Wong presented no additional evidence in the circuit court that had not been presented to the chancery court in the initial action, he was not entitled to relitigate this claim.

(5) Dr. Wong's claim that the defendants' decision to terminate his privileges caused tortious interference with the business relations that he had with the hospital and with his patients (claim # 1) was meritless because (a) the Hospital and its agents, i.e., the other individual defendants, could lawfully terminate their relationship with Dr. Wong and (b) the defendants' decision to terminate Dr. Wong's privileges did not in any way affect his license to practice medicine, and thus did...