Anesthesia Advantage, Inc. v. Metz Group

912 F.2d 397, 1990 WL 116789
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedAugust 15, 1990
DocketNo. 89-1073
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 912 F.2d 397 (Anesthesia Advantage, Inc. v. Metz Group) 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
Anesthesia Advantage, Inc. v. Metz Group, 912 F.2d 397, 1990 WL 116789 (10th Cir. 1990).

Opinion

STEPHEN H. ANDERSON, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs appeal orders of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and dismissing plaintiffs’ antitrust and pendent state law claims. 708 F.Supp. 1171. We reverse and remand.

Plaintiffs are nurse anesthetists and an anesthetist professional organization, The Anesthesia Advantage, Inc. (“TAA”).1 Defendants are physician anesthesiologists and their professional organizations, The Metz Group, an unincorporated association, and Anesthesia Associates, P.C., a Colorado professional corporation, as well as Hu-mana Hospital of Aurora, a Colorado corporation.2 Plaintiffs alleged that certain decisions and proposals relating to the appropriate roles of and relationships between nurse anesthetists and physician anesthesiologists at three particular hospitals in Colorado — Humana Aurora, St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver, and St. Mary’s-Corwin in Pueblo — violated section one of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 and constituted a breach of contract and tortious interference with business and professional relationships, in violation of state law.

After discovery was completed, defendants filed five motions to dismiss or for summary judgment. Included in these was a motion for summary judgment for failure by plaintiffs to satisfy the jurisdictional interstate commerce requirement applicable to the antitrust claims. Plaintiffs cross-moved for partial summary judgment on the jurisdictional issue only.

The district court granted defendants’ motion and denied plaintiffs’ cross-motion, but permitted plaintiffs to “file supplementary documentation alleging Sherman Act jurisdiction” within 60 days. Memorandum Opinion and Order, July 24, 1987, at 9. Plaintiffs timely filed supplementary materials. The district court then considered those supplementary materials and again granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and denied plaintiffs’ motion. It therefore dismissed with prejudice the antitrust claims and dismissed without prejudice the pendent state law claims.

BACKGROUND

Both nurse anesthetists and physician anesthesiologists administer anesthesia. To a certain extent, therefore, they compete with one another in the provision of anesthesia services. Plaintiffs challenge certain decisions and proposals at three hospitals in Colorado. First, they argue that Humana Aurora’s institution of a “call schedule” concerning the availability of anesthesiologists and a recommendation by Humana’s department of anesthesiology that the hospital adopt guidelines concerning the supervision of nurse anesthetists violated section one of the Sherman Act. Second, plaintiffs argue that defendants conspired to induce St. Luke’s Hospital to reject a “fee-for-service” proposal by plaintiffs to provide out-patient ambulatory surgery anesthesia on pre-arranged days, also in violation of section one.3 Third, plaintiffs allege that defendants, particularly defendant Verbrugge, violated section one by inducing St. Mary’s-Corwin Hospital to reject plaintiffs’ proposal that the hospital use plaintiffs for an obstetric epidural an[400]*400esthesia program. Plaintiffs claimed that these actions were part of defendants’ attempt to eliminate nurse anesthetists from practice in the Denver area, with the result that the cost of anesthesia services remained higher and competition was reduced. Plaintiffs allege that these same actions constituted tortious interference with business and professional relationships, and, with regard to events at Huma-na Aurora, a breach of contract, all in violation of state law.4

The district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed plaintiffs’ claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate “a logical connection as a matter of practical economics between the unlawful conduct and interstate commerce.” Crane v. Intermountain Health Care, Inc., 637 F.2d 715, 723 (10th Cir.1980) (en banc). See also McLain v. Real Estate Bd., Inc., 444 U.S. 232, 100 S.Ct. 502, 62 L.Ed.2d 441 (1980); United States v. Suntar Roofing, Inc., 897 F.2d 469 (10th Cir.1990); Lease Lights, Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Co., 701 F.2d 794 (10th Cir.1983); Mishler v. St. Anthony’s Hosp. Sys., 694 F.2d 1225 (10th Cir.1981).

DISCUSSION

“On appeal, we review the granting of a motion for summary judgment de novo, and apply the same standard as the district court. Summary judgment is appropriate only when there are no genuine issues of fact, and one party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Here, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the appellant, as the nonmoving party.” Schalk v. Gallemore, 906 F.2d 491 (10th Cir.1990) (citations omitted); see also Reazin v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield, 899 F.2d 951, 979 (10th Cir.1990), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 3241, 111 L.Ed.2d 752; Osgood v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 848 F.2d 141, 143 (10th Cir.1988). Moreover, summary judgment must be entered “after adequate time for discovery and upon motion against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party’s case, on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). While both parties in this case moved for summary judgment on the jurisdiction issue, that fact “does not permit entry of summary judgment if disputes remain as to material facts.” Houghton v. Foremost Fin. Servs. Corp., 724 F.2d 112, 114 (10th Cir.1983); see also Missouri Pac. R.R. v. Kansas Gas & Elec. Co., 862 F.2d 796, 799 (10th Cir.1988).

The sole issue presented on this appeal is whether the district court correctly held that plaintiffs had failed to satisfy the interstate commerce requirement for jurisdiction under the Sherman Act. “It is now hornbook law that to satisfy interstate commerce jurisdiction under the Sherman Act the challenged activity must occur in the flow of interstate commerce, or, though occurring on a purely local level, substantially affect interstate commerce.” Crane, 637 F.2d at 720 (emphasis original). See McLain, 444 U.S. at 242, 100 S.Ct. at 509; Hospital Bldg. Co. v. Rex Hosp. Trustees,

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The Anesthesia Advantage, Inc. v. The Metz Group
912 F.2d 397 (Tenth Circuit, 1990)

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912 F.2d 397, 1990 WL 116789, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anesthesia-advantage-inc-v-metz-group-ca10-1990.