COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Benton and Bumgardner 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

LOUDOUN HOSPITAL CENTER 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION*

 BY 

v. Record No. 0687-05-4 JUDGE JAMES W. BENTON, JR. 

 DECEMBER 28, 2005 

ROBERT B. STROUBE, M.D., M.P.H., 

 STATE HEALTH COMMISSIONER, 

 THE HEALTH SYSTEMS AGENCY OF 

 NORTHERN VIRGINIA, INC., NORTHERN VIRGINIA 

 COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, L.L.C., AND INOVA 

 HEALTH CARE SERVICES d/b/a INOVA FAIR OAKS 

 HOSPITAL 

 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY 

Theodore J. Markow, Judge Designate 

 Mark S. Hedberg (Virginia H. Hackney; John D. Adams; 

Woodrow W. Turner, Jr.; Hunton & Williams LLP, on briefs), for 

appellant. 

 Matthew M. Cobb, Assistant Attorney General (Judith Williams 

Jagdmann, Attorney General; David E. Johnson, Deputy Attorney 

General; Jane D. Hickey, Senior Assistant Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee Robert B. Stroube, M.D., M.P.H., State Health 

Commissioner. 

Jeannie A. Adams (Thomas F. Hancock, III; Hancock, Daniel, 

Johnson & Nagle, P.C., on brief), for appellee Northern Virginia 

Community Hospital, L.L.C. 

No brief or argument for appellees The Health Systems Agency of 

Northern Virginia, Inc. and Inova Health Care Services, d/b/a 

Inova Fair Oaks Hospital. 

 Loudoun Hospital Center filed a petition for appeal in the circuit court challenging three 

certificate of public need decisions issued by the State Health Commissioner. The circuit court 

 *

 Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not designated for publication. 
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judge “set aside” all three decisions and remanded the cases to the Commissioner for further 

proceedings and reconsideration of the three decisions. On this appeal, Loudoun Hospital 

contends that the judge erred in remanding the cases to the Commissioner and erred in his rulings 

on other aspects of its petition for appeal. We agree with the Commissioner that the judge’s 

ruling is not now appealable, and we dismiss the appeal without prejudice. 

I. 

 In an administrative proceeding involving applications from three hospitals for 

certificates of public need for medical care facilities, see Code § 32.1-102.3, the State Health 

Commissioner denied Loudoun Hospital’s application to add space for thirty-three beds in its 

hospital in Loudoun County, granted an application by Northern Virginia Community Hospital, 

L.L.C. to replace two of its existing hospitals (one in Arlington County and one in Fairfax 

County) with a new one hundred and sixty-four bed hospital in Loudoun County, and approved 

the application by Inova Health Care Services to add twenty-two beds at Inova Fair Oaks 

Hospital in Fairfax County. 

 At the conclusion of the circuit court hearing, the trial judge ruled that the Commissioner 

committed “reversible error” when he failed to include in the administrative record all 

correspondence received prior to the close of the administrative record. The trial judge also 

ruled that collateral estoppel did not preclude the Commissioner from approving Community 

Hospital’s modified application, that the Commissioner’s decision approving Community 

Hospital’s application was not arbitrary and capricious, that the Commissioner’s decision 

complied with the State Medical Facilities Plan, and that the Commissioner’s failure to provide 

Loudoun Hospital with notice of correspondence received after the administrative record closed 

was error but was harmless because the Commissioner did not consider the correspondence in 
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reaching his decision. The trial judge denied motions to reconsider and entered an order setting 

aside the Commissioner’s decisions and remanding the cases for reconsideration. 

 In the order, the trial judge ruled that the Commissioner’s “decision in each of the three 

appeals is dependent upon the decision(s) in the others” and that, therefore, he was setting aside 

all three decisions “due to the reversible error.” The order remanded all the cases to the 

Commissioner for a rehearing and included the following directions: 

2. The Commissioner is hereby instructed to re-open the 

Administrative Record on all three Cases and to include “any 

contrary fact basis or information in possession of the agency that 

can be relied upon in making an adverse decision,” . . . Code 

§ 2.2-4019(A)(iii), and all “written information including staff 

evaluations and reports and correspondence developed or utilized 

or received by the commissioner during the review of [the] medical 

care facility project[s],” 12 VAC 5-220-60, received prior to the 

date of this Order. A copy of the Administrative Record, with the 

additions, shall be provided to all parties to this suit within thirty 

(30) days of the date of this Order. 

3. A hearing shall be conducted in which all parties to this suit 

shall be entitled to appear[,] permitted to introduce evidence[,] and 

present argument regarding any information contained in the 

Administrative Record that was not part of the record on December 

19, 2003. This hearing shall be conducted within thirty (30) days 

of the completion and distribution of the Administrative Record. 

4. After considering such new evidence, the Commissioner, in 

accordance with . . . Code § 32.1-102.3, is instructed to reconsider 

all three of his March 10, 2004 decisions, here at issue, based on 

all the evidence presented prior to this appeal and all evidence 

presented in accordance with this Order. The final case decisions 

shall be issued within thirty (30) days of the hearing. 

II. 

On this appeal by Loudoun Hospital from the trial judge’s order, the Commissioner and 

Community Hospital moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that the trial judge’s order is not a 

final order or an appealable order. We agree. 
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As a court of limited jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction over appeals 

except that which is granted by statute. Polumbo v. Polumbo, 13 Va. App. 306, 307, 411 S.E.2d 

229, 229 (1991). Where, as here, the appeal is from the circuit court’s review of an 

administrative case decision, our jurisdiction is dependent upon a “final decision of a circuit 

court” or an order “adjudicating the principles of a cause.” Code § 17.1-405. 

A final decision of the circuit court “is one that disposes of the whole subject, gives all 

the relief contemplated, and leaves nothing to be done in the cause save to superintend 

ministerially compliance with the order.” Alexander v. Morgan, 19 Va. App. 538, 540, 452 

S.E.2d 370, 371 (1995). Recently, we held that an “order remanding the case to [an 

administrative] Board for further consideration is interlocutory and, despite its title, is not a ‘final 

decision’ within the meaning of Code § 17.1-405.” Commonwealth Dept. of Prof’l & 

Occupational Regulation v. Lancaster, 45 Va. App. 723, 730, 613 S.E.2d 828, 831 (2005). 

There, we applied the well established principle that when “an order leaves any ‘vital questions 

unsettled’ in the matter, it may not be considered final.” Id. at 731, 613 S.E.2d at 832 (quoting 

Allen v. Parkey, 154 Va. 739, 748, 149 S.E. 615, 619 (1930)). 

Loudoun Hospital “agrees [the trial judge’s order] is not a ‘final decision’ for purposes of 

. . . Code § 17.1-405(1).” It contends only that the order adjudicated the principles of the cause. 

To adjudicate the principles of a cause, the decree must determine 

the rules by which the court will determine the rights of the parties. 

The decree must determine that “the rules or methods which the 

rights of the parties are to be finally worked out have been so far 

determined that it is only necessary to apply those rules or methods 

to the facts of the case in order to ascertain the relative rights of the 

parties, with regard to the subject matter of the suit.” 

Pinkard v. Pinkard, 12 Va. App. 848, 851, 407 S.E.2d 339, 341 (1991) (citations omitted). 

 The trial judge ruled that the Commissioner committed reversible error when he failed to 

disclose to the parties evidence in the record and that the Commissioner must reconsider his 
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decisions in all three cases. The trial judge’s rulings did not declare invalid any regulations or 

rules or otherwise impose any conditions that would limit the Commissioner in his 

reconsideration of the administrative record. See e.g., Lancaster, 45 Va. App. at 733 n.1, 613 

S.E.2d at 342 n.1. Likewise, nothing in the trial judge’s rulings bound the Commissioner to 

reinstate his prior decisions; those rulings recognized that the Commissioner had the power to 

come to a different conclusion on all issues when he reheard the cases. In other words, this is not 

a case in which the judge issued rulings or actual limitations such “‘that it is only necessary to 

apply those rules or methods to the facts of the case in order to ascertain the relative rights of the 

parties with regard to the subject matter of the suit.’” Pinkard, 12 Va. App. at 851, 407 S.E.2d at 

341 (quoting Lee v. Lee, 142 Va. 252-53, 128 S.E. 524, 527 (1925)). 

To the extent that the trial judge ruled on other issues, the rulings on those issues are 

purely advisory dicta. By ruling that the Commissioner committed reversible error when he 

failed to disclose all the evidence in the record before making his case decision, the trial judge 

merely rendered an advisory opinion when he addressed further issues. See Vulcan Materials v. 

Bd. of Supervisors of Chesterfield County, 248 Va. 18, 26, 445 S.E.2d 97, 100 (1994) (noting 

that if an administrative entity lacked authority to rule on an issue, a decision on other matters is 

advisory). At best this is a case where there exists ‘“[t]he mere possibility that [the remand 

order] . . . may affect the final decision in the trial.’” Whitaker v. Day, 32 Va. App. 737, 743, 

530 S.E.2d 924, 927 (2000) (quoting Pinkard, 12 Va. App. at 853, 407 S.E.2d at 342). That 

circumstance, however, “‘does not necessitate an immediate appeal.’” Id. (quoting Pinkard, 12 

Va. App. at 853, 407 S.E.2d at 342). As a practical matter, appellate review is not foreclosed to 

any party in this case by the unavailability of an immediate appeal because all issues that are 

now raised on this appeal are available to be raised before the Commissioner at remand and at 

any later review of the Commissioner’s reconsidered case decisions. 
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Accordingly, we hold that the Court is without jurisdiction to entertain this interlocutory 

appeal, and we grant the motions to dismiss without prejudice. 

 Dismissed.