Court Opinion

ID: 9794467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:06:31.349638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:16:33.389581
License: Public Domain

PHELPS and DE CONCINI, Justices
(specially concurring).
We concur in the result reached in this case to the effect that the judgment of .the trial court quashing the writ of certiorari and dissolving the stay must be reversed but we heartily disagree with the ground assigned in the majority opinion for its reversal, to wit, that the resolution passed by the board of supervisors is .unconstitutional.
The ground upon which the judgment of the lower court should be reversed, in our opinion, is that in the finding of the board that the appellants had violated resolution No. Ill previously passed by it; and in its order prohibiting appellants from further use of the facilities of the county hospital the board was in the exercise of a judicial function. It was therefore without jurisdiction to render the judgment complained of until it had given appellants an opportunity to be heard and had presented to it evidence sustaining the finding that appellants refused to assist the county doctor professionally in the treatment of patients or in the performance of operations upon patients confined in the county hospital.
Let us pause here to observe that the word professionally has no such connotation as indicated by the majority opinion. It would not only not be professional but it would be highly unprofessional for a physician to assist in the performance of an operation which he believed to be unnecessary or unwise to perform at that time.
As we view the matter there is no basis whatever for holding that resolution No. 111 is unconstitutional. No provision of *67the constitution is involved and no effort has been made to point to any specific provision thereof which the resolution violates.
All of the powers of the board of supervisors were granted to it by the legislature and it has only such powers as have been expressly, or by necessary implication, delegated to it. Section 17-309(5), A.C.A.1939, relating to the construction and maintenance of hospitals for the indigent sick and the dependent poor is set out in full in the majority opinion. Section 17-348,. A.C.A. 1939, provides: “No person other than an indigent shall receive public aid, or be admitted into any home or hospital the expenses of which are paid by the county, and any contractor or person having charge of any such home or hospital who knowingly receives into the same, for medical attention or subsistence, any person other than an indigent, shall be guilty of a misdemean- or. The board may admit into such hospital for hospital care, medical or surgical attention, any person other than an indigent who will pay, in part or in whole, for such hospital care, medical and surgical attention, under rules and regulations prescribed by the board.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The material portions of section 17-404, A.C.A.1939, are set out in the majority opinion and will not be here repeated. This section contains at the end thereof identically the same language as section 17-348, supra, relative to the admission to the hospital of persons other than indigent patients and reiterates the power of the board to adopt rules and regulations governing their admission and treatment. Section 17-349 provides in part as follows: “ * * * Any person other than an indigent who has been admitted to the county hospital, may employ, without expense to the county, a physician or nurse who shall be permitted the necessary use of the hospital facilities and equipment. The admission of a paying patient shall not be to the inconvenience of any indigent patient and an indigent patient shall receive the same care and treatment accorded to pay patients.”
We believe all of the members of the court agree that in adopting resolution No. Ill the board of supervisors was acting in a legislative capacity. This being true we are neither concerned nor have we the authority to question either the reasonableness or the wisdom of the board in adopting it. These matters rest exclusively with the board. The authority of this court is limited solely to the determination of the question of whether the board in passing resolution No. Ill acted within the power and jurisdiction vested in it by the provisions of law above quoted. We think it did.
The board of supervisors is charged by the above law with the duty of providing for the care and maintenance of the indigent sick and the dependent poor of Mohave County and were empowered to build and maintain a hospital for that purpose. The power to maintain carries with it by *68implication the power to supervise and control it. The hospital is the property of Mohave County. Except in emergency cases when immediate hospitalization or medical care is necessary for the preservation of life or limb no person is allowed to 'be admitted to such hospital without first applying to the board of supervisors for such admission and is is made a misdemeanor for any person in charge of the hospital to admit a person for hospital care, medical attention and subsistence without the consent of the board. Sections 17-348 and 17-404, supra, provide that the board may admit paying patients under rules and regulations prescribed by it. The language used in these sections amounts to an express grant of power to - adopt rules and regulations governing the admission of paying patients.
A public hospital operated by the county has none "of the characteristics of a public service corporation and is not bound to accept for treatment anyone who applies therefor. The statute expressly gives to the board the power to reject paying patients. In our view of the matter the clause “may admit into such hospital” is purely permissive and when considered together with the entire act cannot under any circumstances be construed to mean “must admit * * * ”.
Resolution No. Ill was adopted in accordance with and in the light of the above statute. Provision is made in said resolution for appellants to use the facilities of the hospital for any patient they then had in the hospital. The board has the right as above stated to refuse to admit to the hospital for treatment any and all patients other than indigent.
Upon what right then does the claim of appellants to the use of the hospital and its equipment rest? They have no property right in the hospital or in its equipment or its facilities. The right to practice medicine is not a property right. Appellants are merely licensees as medical practitioners and their licenses may be revoked at any time for cause. Therefore they cannot claim that any property right of theirs has been taken from them, in denying to them the use of the hospital facilities. The mere fact that they are licensed to practice medicine in the state and are engaged in the practice thereof in Mohave County does not of itself give them any legal right to arbitrarily use the county hospital and its facilities in the furtherance of their practice. It cannot logically be said therefore that the regulation adopted by the board violated any legal rights of appellants. The board in adopting such regulation was acting within the express powers granted it by the legislature.
For this court to hold that the board may not adopt regulation No. Ill relating to the proper conduct and control of the county hospital for the. purposes for which it was built and is maintained amounts to a mandate that the board of supervisors must ab*69dicate its powers and authority to manage and control the hospital property of Mohave County, and by judicial fiat turns its management and control over to appellants including the power to dictate the appointment of the county physician of that county. It amounts to' the taking of property without due process of law in violation of both the state and Federal Constitution.