The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of appeals held this month that private physicians in a public hospital operating under color of state law in improperly suspending a physician’s medical staff privileges without due process can be held personally liable under a federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. 1983. In Chudacoff, M.D. v. University Medical Center of So. Nevada, et al, (9th Cir. 2011), the private members of the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee notified Dr. Chudacoff that his OB privileges were being suspended indefinitely and that he would be subject to a practice monitor. No specific reason was provided to him. He was reported to the National Practitioner Data Band as being suspended for “substandard and inadequate care.” The hearing panel who heard his appeal disagreed and he was reinstated subject to ongoing peer review monitoring.
In the meantime, Dr Chudacoff lost his job at the University of Nevada as a result and his privileges were cancelled at several other hospitals. The trial court determined that the hospital MEC violated Dr. Chudacoff’s federal due process rights and failed to comply with the provisions of the Healthcare Quality Improvement Act of 1986. The only remaining question was who was liable as a result. The private physicians argued that as private citizens they could not be held liable for the actions of a public body. The Circuit Court disagreed.
UMC is not a private hospital, but a public one. Consequently, the official actions of its administrative subdivisions, such as the MEC, are actions of the state, and the individual members of the MEC responsible for wrongfully depriving Chudacoff of his protected property interest in UMC staff privileges cannot escape § 1983 liability as private actors. To the contrary, when exercising their delegated authority to suspend, revoke, or otherwise limit Chudacoff's staff privileges at a public hospital, defendants Ellerton, Carrison, Bernstein and Roberts acted as agents of the state.
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