Judge Again Rules Ventura Medical
Staff Can Proceed with Lawsuit
[Posted 10/30/03]

In a significant legal victory for the medical staff at Community Memorial Hospital Ventura, Superior Court Judge Henry Walsh Wednesday rejected for the second time the hospital’s effort to throw out the medical staff’s lawsuit against the hospital.

Judge Walsh had ruled in August that California law recognizes the medical staff as an unincorporated association and therefore its right to sue the hospital. He rejected the hospital’s argument that the medical staff is just another hospital department, which cannot sue its parent institution.

However, Walsh also had ruled that several of the medical staff’s complaints were improper because they were worded as violations of individual physicians’ rights. The medical staff in September rewrote the complaint, resubmitting them as issues in which all medical staff members have a direct interest.

This week’s ruling means that unless a settlement is reached, the case will go to trial and the hospital will be forced to defend its numerous violations of physician rights. Walsh’s ruling had an immediate effect. That same day, the hospital’s Board of Trustees authorized its lawyers to begin formal settlement negotiations with the medical staff.

Informal settlement talks had yielded no agreement, despite initial optimism caused by the abrupt resignation a few weeks ago of hospital CEO Michael Bakst.

Contact: CMA’s legal information line, 415/882-5144 or legalinfo@cmanet.org.