Opinion ID: 1168689
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Dr. Ritter's appointment to staff privileges constituted constitutionally protected property interests.

Text: The State may not deprive a person of a property interest without affording due process, by mandate of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. It is uncontested that the Board's acts constitute state action. There is no precise definition of what constitutes a property interest for due process purposes. The United States Supreme Court said of the term in the employment termination area: To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. It is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined. It is a purpose of the constitutional right to a hearing to provide an opportunity for a person to vindicate those claims. Property interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law  rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 33 L.Ed.2d 548, 92 S.Ct. 2701 (1972). In Roth, the court found that a teacher's property interest in reemployment was created and defined by the terms of his appointment. No property interest was found because the contract failed to provide for renewal of the 1-year appointment. The majority contends that because there is no property interest in public employment, there can be no property interest in a right to practice one's employment in a certain building. Furthermore, the majority asserts that courts must defer to boards' judgments in physician termination cases. Such deference is based upon the importance placed on protection of the vital interests of the public. Courts should only interfere if staff privileges are granted to or denied doctors based on an `arbitrary, tyrannical, or ... fundamentally wrong basis.' Rao v. Board of County Comm'rs, 80 Wn.2d 695, 698, 497 P.2d 591 (1972) quoting from Group Health Coop. v. King County Medical Soc'y, 39 Wn.2d 586, 237 P.2d 737 (1951). The majority's cases can be easily distinguished. Ritter was not applying for staff privileges as were the doctors in the cases cited; rather, Ritter was midterm in his clinical appointment when he was summarily dismissed. Nor was Ritter suspended because the Board chose to rely upon the advice of the medical staff. No medical staff opinion was either sought or considered before the Board suspended him. In Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 601, 33 L.Ed.2d 570, 92 S.Ct. 2694 (1972), a companion case to Roth, the Supreme Court stated: We have made clear in Roth, supra, at 571-572, that property interests subject to procedural due process protection are not limited by a few rigid, technical forms. Rather, property denotes a broad range of interests that are secured by existing rules or understandings. Id., at 577. A person's interest in a benefit is a property interest for due process purposes if there are such rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit and that he may invoke at a hearing. Ibid. Ritter's suspension from the exercise of his staff privileges occurred approximately 4 months prior to the expiration of his appointment. As such, under the reasoning of Roth and its progeny, Dr. Ritter had a legitimate claim of entitlement to his continued employment, at least for the duration of the 1978 calendar year.