Opinion ID: 1784250
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First, the players:

Text: (A) The City of Durant is a municipal corporation organized and existing by virtue of the laws of the State of Mississippi, lying on the eastern side of Holmes County, Mississippi. The City of Durant was one of the Plaintiffs below and is one of the Appellants here. (B) W.B. Johnson, John W. Glover, Swisher Hobbs, Faye Durham, Miles Ray, Frank Cox, Henry L. Mitchell, Earl Dodd Browning, William F. Irby, Wiley Humphreys, Margaret Lomax, and Daisy Glover, all adult resident citizens of eastern Holmes County, Mississippi, residing in the Durant and West Communities. Each of these individuals was a Plaintiff below and is an Appellant here. (C) Humphreys County Memorial Hospital/Extended Care Facility (HCMH/ECF) is a publicly-owned hospital and health care provider based principally in Belzoni, Mississippi. HCMH/ECF is the applicant holding a CON and now a license to operate the skilled nursing facility in dispute. HCMH/ECF was a Defendant below and is one of the Appellants here. (D) The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) is an administrative agency of the State of Mississippi organized and existing under the laws of this state. MSDH was a Defendant below and is one of the Appellants here. (E) The Mississippi Health Care Commission (MHCC) was once an administrative agency of the State of Mississippi organized and existing under the laws of this state. Miss. Laws ch. 451, §§ 3(1), et seq. (1979). Prior to July 1, 1986, MHCC administered the Certificate of Need (CON) program. [1] After July 1, 1986, state law transferred the CON program to MSDH and the State Health Officer, Dr. Alton B. Cobb, and thereupon abolished MHCC. See Miss. Code Ann. § 41-7-175 (Supp. 1990). The bone of contention  or plum, depending upon one's point of view  is the legal authority to provide skilled nursing home services [2] in the Holmes County area. Prior to 1986, Holmes County was one of a number of our counties which had no nursing home. For the first half of the 1980's, the state, for reasons beyond our ken or concern, had by law imposed a moratorium on the building of new nursing home facilities. One exception allowed MHCC to issue CON's, upon proper showings, to any existing health care facility with fewer than sixty (60) skilled nursing beds: ... for making additions to or expansion or replacement of the existing facility, in order to increase the number of its beds to not more than sixty (60) beds. Miss. Code Ann. § 41-7-191(2) (Supp. 1985). Prior to the time in issue HCMH/ECF owned and operated a seven-bed, extended care, skilled nursing unit as a part of its general facilities in Belzoni. On November 27, 1985, HCMH/ECF applied to the MHCC for a CON to build and operate a skilled nursing facility in Lexington, Holmes County, Mississippi. [3] HCMH/ECF perceived a substantial need in a three-county area  Humphreys, Holmes and Carroll  and offered to address that need. HCMH/ECF amended its application on several occasions so that, in the end, it sought a CON to replace its existing facility with a sixty-bed skilled nursing home in Lexington, upon the completion of which HCMH/ECF would close the seven-bed unit in Belzoni. On May 19, 1986, MHCC approved HCMH/ECF's application as amended, and issued CON Number 0491. The CON originally set a May 18, 1987, deadline for HCMH/ECF to begin construction and later enlarged that limit by six months to extend through November 17, 1987. George Jobe, Chief of the MSDH's Planning and Resource Development Division, explained the notice given. In 1985 when HCMH/ECF first submitted the CON application, Jobe served as the Chief of the Resource Development Division. Jobe stated MHCC issued written notice that it was beginning review of the CON application. Copies of the notice were sent to the fifteen hospitals in HCMH's service area, two located in Holmes County [4] . With the exception of the two hospitals in Holmes County, no other person in Holmes County received actual notice. Notice [5] was published in The Delta Democrat-Times, a newspaper of general circulation in the HCMH's service area. Moreover, the two hospitals in Holmes County received copies of MHCC's May 1st newsletter which contained reports of the Department's activities. [6] It appears that in prior years the City of Durant [7] had shown an interest in establishing a nursing home facility in the Holmes County area. As the city was not a then-current operator, its hands were tied during the statutory moratorium. In 1987, the Legislature amended the law to give MSDH broader authority to issue CON's for nursing home facilities. See Miss. Laws ch. 515, § 6 (1987). The new enactment, however, limited each county to sixty (60) beds and said MSDH could not issue a new CON if there were in the county an outstanding CON authorizing not less than sixty (60) beds where construction was begun prior to November 30, 1987. On September 1, 1987, the City of Durant applied to MSDH for a CON to construct a sixty-bed nursing home in Durant. Upon doing so, the City learned of HCMH/ECF's outstanding CON. The City determined to pursue its own CON application but to wage war as well on a second front, contesting HCMH/ECF's right to provide nursing home services in Holmes County. The City soon realized that the normal route for such a contest  an appeal to the Chancery Court  was entailed by a thirty-day limitations period following the issuance of the CON. By this time the clock was some seventeen months past May 19, 1986, the date of HCMH/ECF's CON. On October 30, 1987, the City of Durant and a number of persons residing in eastern Holmes County commenced this civil action by filing their complaint in the Chancery Court of Holmes County. In their complaint, Plaintiffs sought an injunction prohibiting HCMH/ECF from constructing the proposed nursing home facility in Lexington and prohibiting MSDH from denying the City of Durant's CON application. On November 2, 1987, the Chancery Court denied Plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order. See Rule 65(b), Miss.R.Civ.P. The Court immediately set the matter for hearing on Plaintiffs' prayer for a preliminary injunction, and on November 16, 1987, the Court issued a bench opinion not only denying the preliminary injunction, but dismissing the complaint on its merits. See Rule 65(a)(2), Miss.R.Civ.P. On December 11, 1987, the Court entered final judgment thereon, and Plaintiffs have timely perfected an appeal. Shortly thereafter, on December 17, 1987, MSDH denied the City of Durant's application for a CON. Neither the City nor any other party appealed to the Chancery Court, a point whose importance will presently appear.