A. Peter Crane, M.D. v. Intermountain Health Care, Inc. And Sidney G. Garrett

637 F.2d 715
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 20, 1981
Docket78-1346
StatusPublished
Cited by59 cases

This text of 637 F.2d 715 (A. Peter Crane, M.D. v. Intermountain Health Care, Inc. And Sidney G. Garrett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
A. Peter Crane, M.D. v. Intermountain Health Care, Inc. And Sidney G. Garrett, 637 F.2d 715 (10th Cir. 1981).

Opinions

BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal attacks the dismissal of an action charging violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. The trial court held that subject matter jurisdiction was lacking because the restraint alleged had no substantial effect on interstate commerce. We affirm.

Plaintiff-appellant Crane is a pathologist. Defendant-appellee Intermountain Health Care, Inc., owns and operates Cottonwood Hospital in Utah, and 16 other hospitals in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The other named defendant, Sidney G. Garrett, is the administrator of Cottonwood Hospital. The complaint alleges that other entities and individuals have shared a common business motivation with the named defendants to restrain the practice of pathology at Cottonwood Hospital and to boycott the plaintiff’s services.

The gravamen of the complaint is that the defendants have conspired to exclude plaintiff from performing pathology services at Cottonwood, have refused to consult with him and to allow staff members to do so, have required that pathology specimens of Cottonwood patients be evaluated at the laboratory of Cottonwood, and have refused to allow plaintiff to use his own laboratory in the examination of such specimens. The conspiracy is said to limit competition, restrain trade, and fix prices in the practice of pathology.

[717]*717Defendants moved to dismiss on the grounds of failure to state a claim and lack of subject matter jurisdiction because of no substantial effect on interstate commerce. Plaintiff filed a request for production of documents by the defendants and to compel such production under Rule 34, F.R.Civ.P. Defendants moved for a protective order that they not be required to produce until after determination of their motion to dismiss. The deposition of the plaintiff was taken and filed. The parties briefed the issues raised by the motion to dismiss. Plaintiff presented the affidavit of one of his lawyers. After argument the district court found that “the restraint complained of does not substantially affect interstate commerce” and held that it had no subject matter jurisdiction. In so ruling, the court said that Wolf v. Jane Phillips Episcopal-Memorial Medical Center, 10 Cir., 513 F.2d 684, was controlling and was not limited in its application by Hospital Building Co. v. Trustees of Rex Hospital, 425 U.S. 738, 96 S.Ct. 1848, 48 L.Ed.2d 338.

The opinion of the court shows that it gave consideration only to the complaint and not to the deposition of the plaintiff or the affidavit of his attorney. In the circumstances Rule 56, F.R.Civ.P., on summary judgment, has no application. “If, as a matter of law, the complaint, without consideration of matter presented but not excluded, is insufficient, a motion to dismiss is proper.” Torres v. First State Bank of Sierra County, 10 Cir., 550 F.2d 1255, 1257.

Plaintiff says that the dismissal was premature because he had not been given an opportunity to complete his discovery. We agree with plaintiff that summary judgment should be used sparingly in antitrust litigation “where motive and intent play leading roles.” Hospital Building Co. v. Trustees of Rex Hospital, 425 U.S. 738, 746, 96 S.Ct. 1848, 48 L.Ed.2d 338, and Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 368 U.S. 464, 473, 82 S.Ct. 486, 491, 7 L.Ed.2d 458. We are concerned with jurisdiction, not intent. Umdenstock v. American Mortgage & Investment Co. of Oklahoma City, 10 Cir., 495 F.2d 589, 592, is not in point. In that case, there was independent federal question jurisdiction and antitrust violation was but one of several claims. We reversed the dismissal of the antitrust claim because the plaintiffs had been precluded from discovery to support their claim. See also Bryan v. Stillwater Board of Realtors, 10 Cir., 578 F.2d 1319, 1322-1326, upholding summary dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. We agree with Doctors, Inc. v. Blue Cross of Greater Philadelphia, 3 Cir., 490 F.2d 48, 51, that whether an effect is substantial “requires ‘a practical, case-by-case economic judgment, not a conclusion derived from application of abstract or mechanistic formulae.’ ” (Citing cases.)

In Wolf v. Jane Phillips Episcopal-Memorial Medical Center, 10 Cir., 513 F.2d 684, we sustained the grant of a motion to dismiss an antitrust suit brought by a doctor against a hospital. Admission of patients to the hospital could be only by a hospital staff member. The plaintiff had been denied staff membership because he was an osteopathic physician and surgeon. The hospital had a policy against admitting osteopaths to its staff and none had been accepted. The trial court dismissed on the grounds (1) the practice of medicine is not a trade or commerce within the purview of the Sherman Act, and (2) the allegations did not support a claim that defendant’s conduct substantially affected interstate commerce. On review the question of exemption was noted but not discussed. The dismissal was affirmed on the jurisdictional ground of no substantial effect on interstate commerce. Wolf says, Id. at 688:

“ * * * aside from a general allegation that his business involves interstate commerce, the plaintiff does not suggest that the defendants’ conspiracy threatens his purchase of interstate goods or that the flow of such goods would be affected in any way by his exclusion from the defendants’ medical staff. * * * Whatever effect the alleged conspiracy might have upon interstate commerce in goods purchased by the plaintiff is insubstantial and therefore an insufficient basis for jurisdiction.”

We find no significant distinction between Wolf and the case at bar. The plain[718]*718tiff is not aided by his claim of price fixing. An allegation of a per se Sherman Act violation does not eliminate the need to satisfy the jurisdictional requirement of a substantial effect on interstate commerce. McLain v. Real Estate Bd. of New Orleans, Inc., 5 Cir., 583 F.2d 1315, 1320-1321, cert. granted 441 U.S. 942, 99 S.Ct. 2159, 60 L.Ed.2d 1043 and cases there cited. Cf. Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 783-786, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 44 L.Ed.2d 572.

The complaint alleges that defendant Intermountain, the owner of Cottonwood Hospital, provides health care services in several states and that these services substantially affect trade and commerce.

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Bluebook (online)
637 F.2d 715, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/a-peter-crane-md-v-intermountain-health-care-inc-and-sidney-g-ca10-1981.