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Parties Involved:
Linda Campbell
Appellee
Joseph P. Seay, DDS, MS
Appellant
Jeff Lunday
Appellee
Ron Winder
Appellee

Document Text:

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

MAY 3 2005 

PATRICK FISHER 

Clerk 

JOSEPH P. SEAY, DDS, MS, 

Plaintiff - Appellant, 

V. 

LINDA CAMPBELL, RON WINDER 

and JEFF LUNDAY, in their 

individual capacities, 

Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 04-6035 

(W.D. Okla.) 

(D.C. No. CV-02-1028-L) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before LUCERO, McKAY, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. 

Joseph P. Seay, DDS, MS, appeals from the district court's order granting 

the defendants' motion for summary judgment and denying his motion for partial 

summary judgment in this civil rights action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously to grant the parties' request for a decision on the briefs without oral 

argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1 (G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and 

collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and 

judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and 

conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

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§ 1983. In his complaint, Seay included claims for violation of due process and 

conspiracy. He also now asserts that he is entitled to proceed on claims for 

malicious prosecution and for denial of substantive due process. We AFFIRM. 

I 

Seay has been a licensed dentist since 1993, and is a member of the 

Oklahoma Board of Dentistry ("Board"). 1 He completed a two-year post-dental 

school residency in anaesthesiology and is one of two dentist anaesthesiologists 

operating in the State of Oklahoma. He maintains an ambulatory practice and 

performs general anaesthesiology and deep sedation for dentists and dental 

specialists who require such services at their offices. Relying on the 

qualifications obtained during his residency in anaesthesiology, Seay also 

provides general anaesthesiology services to non-dental patients in hospitals, is on 

As in the district court, the statement of facts in Seay' s brief is unduly 

argumentative. See Aplt. App., Vol. II at 716 n.1 (noting that Seay's statement of 

uncontested facts "consisted mainly of unsupported allegations, conclusory 

statements, and argument."). Seay also draws questionable inferences from the 

evidence, see, e.g., Aplt. Opening Br. at 4 (stating the Board "acquiesced to 

[Seay' s anaesthesiology] practice" and later "attempted to surreptitiously 

implement anti-competitive inspection rules"). Both parties make statements that 

appear to find no record support. See, e.g., id. at 5 (stating that complaining 

witness Dunham had been "terminated by Seay after working for less than one ... 

day"); Aplee Br. at 5 ("Seay's malpractice insurance does not cover epidural 

anaesthesia."). Parties should ensure that the factual statements in their briefs 

find support in the record. See generally Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(7). 

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the anaesthesiology staff at two Oklahoma hospitals, and has provided pain relief 

to hospice patients on a charitable basis. 

The Board is an agency of Oklahoma state government charged with 

enforcing the provisions of the State Dental Act. Okla. Stat., tit. 59 § 328. 7(A). 

It is empowered to conduct investigations of alleged violations of the Dental Act 

or the Board's rules, to initiate individual proceedings, and to issue administrative 

penalties against dentists who are found to have committed violations of the Act 

or its rules. Id.§§ 328.15(B)(8), (14). The defendants are members of the Board 

who Seay alleges have conspired to damage his practice as a mobile dental 

anaesthesiologist. Defendant Jeff Lunday was the Board's president at the time 

Seay's allegations arose, and defendant Linda Campbell has been the Board's 

executive director since 1979. 

Oklahoma statutes, supplemented by the Board's rules and regulations, set 

out the procedure under which the Board conducts its investigations and 

disciplines Oklahoma dentists. They provide that "[a]ny person may file a written 

and signed complaint with the Board." Id. § 328.43a(A). The complaint is then 

directed by the Board's president to two specific Board members for review. Id. 

This review panel conducts an investigation to determine whether it is more likely 

than not that the dentist has committed a violation. Id. § 328.43a(B). If the 

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review panel so finds, it may recommend that the Board institute an individual 

proceeding against the dentist. Id. § 328.43a(D). 

After hearing from the review panel, the Board determines whether to 

issue a "formal statement of complaint" to begin individual proceedings against 

the dentist. Rules & Regs., Okla. State Bd. of Dentistry§§ 195:3-1-3(b), 195:3-1-

4(a). On complaint and notice of hearing pursuant to§ 195:3-1-4(b), if upon 

hearing the Board finds by clear and convincing evidence that the dentist has 

violated the Dental Act, the Board may impose appropriate disciplinary sanctions 

on thie dentist. Okla. Stat. tit. 59, § 328.44a. 

Seay' s complaint in this action arises from investigations of his 

anaesthesiology practice by the Board beginning in 1995 and culminating in a 

formal statement of complaint against him in 2000. 

A 

We begin with the investigations and incidents prior to the 2000 

proceeding. In August 1995, defendant Campbell contacted an agent of the 

Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs ("OSBNDD") and 

requested that OSBNDD make an inquiry of its computerized system for tracking 

prescriptions concerning narcotic drugs prescribed by Seay. The agent conducted 

the inquiry and determined that during the time period between June 28, 1993 to 

September 15, 1995, Seay had issued a small number of prescriptions for pain-

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killing drugs that the agent concluded "were not typical of prescriptions issued by 

a dentist." Aplt. App., Vol. I at 197. Seay later testified, and there appears to be 

no factual dispute, that these drugs had been issued to hospice patients. Although 

the OSBNDD agent proposed further investigation, apparently the matter was 

closed and the Board took no further action against Seay at that time. 

In March 1998, Campbell received a letter from a certified registered nurse 

anaesthetist ("CRNA") expressing concern about Seay's anaesthesiology practice 

involving non-dental patients at Pauls Valley General Hospital. Campbell 

appointed a two-member review panel to investigate the CRNA 's complaint,2 

which was dismissed by the Board after a physician reviewed the complaint and 

stated he "did not feel alarmed" by it, Aplt. App., Vol. I at 22 7, and the Board's 

counsel suggested that the allegations that Seay was practicing medicine without a 

license would be better investigated by the State Medical Board. 

Dental Board rules require that dentists holding anaesthesia permits be reinspected every three years. Board of Dentistry Rules & Regs.§ 195:20-1-13. 

When Seay's permit came up for review in 1999, he insisted that the Board 

provide an impartial inspection team. There were significant delays in approval 

of his renewal permit, and the Board ultimately cancelled Seay's anaesthesia 

2 The review panel members are not defendants in this suit. 

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permit for non-reinspection. Seay was compelled to obtain temporary permits 

from the Board in order to stay in business. 

B 

Campbell received information that a dentist named Dr. Steffen was 

utilizing Seay's services without a facility permit. Campbell dispatched an 

investigator who prepared a report that lent factual support to the allegations 

whereupon defendant Lunday appointed a review panel to deal with the 

investigation on July 21, 2000. The review panel, consisting of defendant Ronald 

Winder and another dentist not named in this action, recommended an 

investigation into Dr. Seay's operating without an anesthetic permit. 

Finding that Seay had written improper prescriptions for narcotic drugs, 

prescribed or administered drugs without a valid dentist-patient relationship, and 

failed to retain patient records for at least three years, the review panel concluded 

it had good cause to believe that Seay had violated the Act and rules of the Board. 

A statement of complaint was prepared. This complaint charged Seay with six 

violations dating back to 1995, including performance of medical procedures on 

non-dental patients; prescription of pain control medication to non-dental 

patients; failure to maintain a general anaesthesia permit at his professional 

facility in McAlester; providing general anaesthesia at another dentist's office 

where that other dentist did not hold a general anaesthesia facility permit; falsely 

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representing himself as a medical anaesthesiologist; and using a false and 

misleading trade name. 

At its October 20, 2000 meeting, the Board voted to approve the statement 

of complaint. As Seay was a member of the Board, the Board further voted to 

appoint a temporary pro tern Board, which would be free from conflict of interest, 

to process the complaint. In February 2001, Campbell arranged for the review 

panel to meet with the pro tern Board. Seay contends that this meeting was 

designed to contaminate the pro tern Board. 

The pro tern Board in turn appointed two of its members to a review panel. 

Both of the review panel members subsequently recommended that the complaint 

be dismissed. Notwithstanding this recommendation, on July 2, 2001, the 

Oklahoma Attorney General attempted to obtain the review panel's consensus on 

a proposed stipulated settlement agreement with Seay. This drew the ire of one of 

the review panel members, who expressed her "great displeasure" that a "blunder 

of this magnitude" had occurred when both review panel members had already 

voted to dismiss the complaint against Seay. Aplt. App., Vol. I at 373. 

In spite of the recommendation to dismiss, Campbell scheduled a meeting 

of the pro tern Board in August 2001. She continued to work with an expert 

witness concerning Seay's practices into July 2001. She did not notify Seay until 

September 7, 2001 that the complaint against him had been dismissed. 

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II 

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. Marcus 

v. McCollum, 394 F .3d 813, 820 (I 0th Cir. 2004). Summary judgment is 

appropriate "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and 

admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no 

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a 

judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). When we apply this standard, 

we view the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in a light most favorable 

to the nonmoving party. Fisher v. Okla. Health Care Auth., 335 F.3d 1175, 1180 

(10th Cir. 2003 ). "At the summary judgment stage, our role is simply to 

determine whether the evidence proffered by plaintiff would be sufficient, if 

believed by the ultimate fact-finder, to sustain the claim." Marcus, 394 F .3d at 

820 (citation omitted). 

Defendants sought summary judgment on the basis that Seay' s allegations 

fail to establish a constitutional violation, and that they were entitled to qualified 

immunity. Each of these arguments requires us to consider whether Seay has 

demonstrated that the defendants' actions violated his constitutional rights. See 

id. at 823. If so, then we determine whether their conduct was objectively 

reasonable in light of clearly-established law at the time it took place. Id. 

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A 

"Under the Fourteenth Amendment, procedural due process requires notice 

and a pre-deprivation hearing before property interests are negatively affected by 

governmental actors." Marcus, 394 F.3d at 818. It is undisputed that Seay has a 

property interest in his professional license to practice dentistry. To establish his 

claimed procedural due process violation, Seay must show that the defendants did 

not give him adequate notice and opportunity to be heard before depriving him of 

this property interest. 

There is some question whether Seay was "deprived" of his property 

interest, given that the Board ultimately dismissed its complaint against him. We 

need not resolve that issue, however, because summary judgment is appropriate 

for another reason. Seay failed to show that he did not receive adequate notice of 

the Board proceeding and an adequate opportunity to be heard. 

Seay does not deny that he ultimately received notice of the charges 

included in the statement of complaint or that he had an opportunity to be heard 

concerning them. Indeed, the ultimate result was dismissal of the charges against 

him. Instead, he argues that the Board's governing statutes provided an 

additional layer of procedural protection by making the Board powerless to 

conduct "any type of investigation or disciplinary proceeding" until it had 

received a "written and signed complaint" against him. Aplt. Opening Br. at 10 

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(quoting§ 328.43a(A)). As the district court pointed out, however, a violation of 

state law procedures (assuming the Board violated§ 328.43a(A), an issue that it 

hotly contests) does not automatically equate to a violation of due process. See 

Spielman v. Hildebrand, 873 F.2d 1377, 1385 (10th Cir. 1989). 

Seay cites no authority for the proposition that due process required the 

Board to wait until it received a written and signed complaint about him before it 

could investigate whether he had violated the Dental Act. He analogizes the 

requirement of a complaint to a pre-termination hearing in the employment 

context. The Board's issuance of a statement of complaint, however, notifying 

Seay of the charges against him, coupled with the right to a hearing provided 

before discipline was imposed, plainly served the purpose of notice and a 

predeprivation hearing. See Rules & Regs.§ 195:3-1-4(b); cf. Kenev v. 

Derbyshire, 718 F .2d 352 ( I 0th Cir. 1983) (holding similar New Mexico 

physician license revocation procedures satisfied due process, notwithstanding 

absence of a probable cause hearing prior to institution of proceedings against 

physician). We conclude that the alleged lack of a written and signed complaint 

before the Board began its investigation did not deprive Seay of procedural due 

process. Summary judgment was therefore appropriate on this claim. 

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B 

The district court concluded that Seay's civil conspiracy claim could not 

survive summary judgment because he failed to show that the defendants had 

acted in concert against him. A plaintiff asserting a conspiracy to violate his 

constitutional rights must allege specific facts showing agreement and concerted 

action among the defendants. Salehpoor v. Shahinpoor, 358 F.3d 782, 789 (10th 

Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 125 S. Ct. 47 (2004); Tonkovich v. Ks. Bd. of Regents, 

159 F .3d 504, 533 (10th Cir. 1998). 

Much of Seay's conspiracy claim is based upon his contention that the 

defendants violated his constitutional rights by investigating him without a 

written and signed complaint. As we have seen, these allegations do not state a 

claim for a violation of procedural due process, and hence cannot establish a 

conspiracy to violate Seay's procedural due process rights. It appears, however, 

that Seay attempts to prove a more broad-ranging conspiracy, asserting, for 

example, that defendants conducted three separate investigations in order to run 

him out of business. 

We conclude that Seay has failed to establish the existence of the claimed 

conspiracy between the defendants. At best, he presents a series of events in 

which the defendants each participated at some point, but no specific facts to 

show agreement and a concerted action by the defendants. 

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In his brief, Seay complains that after defendant Campbell initiated the 

1995 investigation of his practices by contacting the OBNDD, she and other 

members of the Board questioned his writing of prescriptions and discussed the 

matter with Seay and his attorney. Seay does not discuss who these "other 

members of the Board" were. In his deposition testimony, however, he mentioned 

only Dr. Garrett, who is not a defendant in this action. There is no showing of a 

conspiracy between Garrett and Campbell to deprive Seay of his constitutional 

rights. Seay fails to show any concerted action by the defendants in connection 

with the 1995 investigation. 

Seay states that when he successfully sued the Board in 1997 for violation 

of rule-making procedures, he included all three defendants in his state court 

lawsuit. 3 He suggests that the Board members were angered by the fact that he 

had sued them. This fact may suggest a motive to conspire, but does not 

demonstrate concerted action by the defendants. 

Seay charges that the defendants worked together to process the 1998 

complaint against him. It is difficult to see how this can be construed as evidence 

of a conspiracy. The Board members had received a complaint from a member of 

3 Seay's complaint in this action targets only judicially-unreviewed executive 

actions by the Board, and not those of any state court. For this reason, his 

complaint is not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See Verizon Md., Inc. 

v. Public Serv. Comm'n, 535 U.S. 635, 644 n.3 (2002). 

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the public, investigated the complaint, obtained the advice of an outside 

physician, and dismissed the complaint. Seay also complains that defendants 

resurrected the allegations of the 1998 complaint to form part of the 2000 

complaint against him. See id. at 208. While use of the allegations dismissed as 

part of a prior complaint may have been improper under state law principles, Seay 

fails to show that this demonstrates a conspiracy to violate his constitutional 

rights. 

This is also true of the complaint that defendant Winder "continued to work 

with a group of Tulsa Oral Surgeons (Seay's Competitors) to restrict the practice 

of any and all dental anesthesiologists like Seay." Aplt. Br. at 27-28. The only 

evidence Seay offers is a letter from the oral surgeons to Winder expressing anger 

about the "so-called dental anaesthesiologists." Seay cites no evidence that 

Winder acted in concert with the other defendants to pursue the oral surgeons' 

complaint by harassing Seay. 

We are directed to evidence that in July 2000, defendants Lunday and 

Campbell met together, with the Board's attorney and another member of the 

Board, to review his general anaesthesia permit. As a result of the review, the 

Board requested a copy of Seay' s certificate showing completion of his residency 

at Ohio State University. Seay contends that there was no legitimate or lawful 

reason for the review. At the time, however, he was operating under a temporary 

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anaesthesia permit while his permanent permit was under review for renewal. We 

are unable to conclude that this is evidence of a conspiracy. 

Seay complains that the 2000 proceeding could not have gone forward 

without each of the defendants' separate approval. Parallel action, however, does 

not necessarily indicate an agreement to act in concert. Salehpoor, 358 F.3d at 

789. 

Finally, Seay charges that defendants Winder and Campbell continued to 

work together to locate an expert to testify against him, even after the Pro Tern 

Review Panel had unanimously recommended dismissal of the 2000 statement of 

complaint. It appears that at the time they took this action, the Board had not yet 

formally dismissed the complaint against Seay. It notified him of the dismissal of 

the complaint a few months later. We discern no evidence of a conspiracy to 

violate Seay' s constitutional rights in Winder and Campbell's attempts to develop 

expert testimony prior to formal dismissal of the complaint against Seay. 

We conclude that the district court correctly granted summary judgment on 

Seay' s conspiracy claim. 

C 

In his appellate briefing, Seay also claims that the defendants violated his 

substantive due process rights. Defendants respond that Seay failed to make this 

argument below and it is therefore waived. See e.g., Walker v. Mather On re 

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Walker). 959 F.2d 894, 896 (10th Cir. 1992) (following general rule that appellate 

courts will not consider an issue that was not raised below). Even if Seay 

preserved the argument, however, summary judgment is appropriate on this claim. 

Seay's complaint included a claim for "violation of due process," without 

specifying whether the violation implicated his right to substantive or procedural 

due process. We have recognized that procedural and substantive due process 

issues frequently overlap, and counsel may not always correctly identify the basis 

for a due process claim. See Tonkovich, 159 F.3d at 527-28. The clearest 

statement of Seay's claim as presented to the district court came in his motion for 

partial summary judgment, where he stated: 

The essence of Seay' s claim is that the Defendants, under color of 

law, deprived him of his due process rights and property interests in 

his license to practice dentistry by intentionally ignoring the statutory 

requirements of both the Dental Act and Dental Board Rules and that 

they knowingly and falsely concocted allegations that Seay had 

violated the Dental Act. 

Aplt. App., Vol. I at 88. 

As regards the claim that the defendants ignored statutory requirements, 

which appears to be coterminous with Seay' s assertion that defendants violated 

his procedural due process rights by failing to await a written and signed 

complaint before proceeding against him, we have already concluded that this 

claim lacks merit. His claim that defendants knowingly concocted false 

allegations against him, if proved, could potentially implicate a violation of 

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substantive due process. See Tonkovich, 159 F.3d at 528 (stating substantive due 

process violations are those that "shock the conscience" of the court, or are 

arbitrary in a constitutional sense). Seay offers no proof, however, that the 

Board's charges against him were "false." Although he asserts that the Board had 

dismissed similar charges against him on prior occasions, and that the pro tern 

Board's review panel ultimately did not find it more likely than not that he had 

committed a violation, this does not equate to a deliberate falsehood. Nor does 

merely resurrecting old charges, which had never been formally served on Seay 

and adjudicated against him, by itself constitute a violation of substantive due 

process. We conclude that Seay has failed to establish a substantive due process 

claim. 

D 

Seay also argues that he established a claim for malicious prosecution. 

Defendants counter that Seay did not present such a claim to the district court. 

Although he did argue in his brief in support of partial summary judgment that he 

had established a claim "tantamount to" such a claim under § 1983, he did not 

include a malicious prosecution claim in his complaint, nor did he move to amend 

his complaint to include a claim for malicious prosecution. Defendants resisted 

Seay's attempt to interject a claim for malicious prosecution into the action, and 

the district court did not discuss the claim in its order. Because we conclude that 

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the issue of malicious prosecution was not included in Seay's complaint, or in an 

amended complaint, and that it was not tried by consent of the parties, see Fed. R. 

Civ. P. l 5(b ), we will not consider it on appeal. 

III 

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court 

Carlos F. Lucero 

Circuit Judge 

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