Court Opinion

ID: 9792864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:38:17.555382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:19.881704
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
dissenting:
The court holds that Oral Roberts University [ORU] is entitled to a certificate of need [CON] for the construction of a 294-bed hospital in Tulsa. I am unable to join in this pronouncement. My view is that [a] the district court order here on review is but interlocutory and hence unappealable and [b] the postural constraints in which the case comes here either render it moot or, at the very least, severely impair a free and deliberate judicial choice from a full range of available alternatives.
I.
THIS APPEAL IS SOUGHT TO BE PROSECUTED FROM AN UNAPPEALA-BLE DISTRICT COURT DECISION ON REVIEW OF AN ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCY’S ORDER
The district court order from which the appeal is sought to be prosecuted remanded this cause to the agency whence it came, the Oklahoma Health Planning Commission [OHPC], with directions to take additional evidence and to make new findings of fact. This procedure is explicitly sanctioned by the provisions of 75 O.S.1971 § 322(2). No appeal lies to this court from a nonfinal order of the district court on review of an agency decision. 75 O.S.1971 § 323. The remand left the case undetermined and sub judice. The district court order must hence be regarded as interlocutory. Hughes Motor Co. v. Warner, 187 Okl. 255, 102 P.2d 594, 595 [1940]; Kansas Explorations, Inc. v. Blaine, 195 Okl. 428, 158 P.2d 907 [1945]; Reid v. Phillips Petroleum Company, Okl., 531 P.2d 340, 341 [1975]. Language similar, if not identical to that in our § 323, supra, found in federal statutory law, 28 U.S.C. 1291, is construed in accord with my view. Bohms v. Gardner, 381 F.2d 283, 285 [8th *323Cir. 1967]; Mayersky v. Celebrezze, 353 F.2d 89 [3rd Cir. 1965]; Marshall v. Celebrezze, 351 F.2d 467, 468 [3rd Cir. 1965].1
My conclusion is that this appeal should have been dismissed. This court’s order of January 12, 1979 2 — which denied appellee’s motion to dismiss — was in error. Unless there is an express indication to the contrary, an order of this court that denies appellee’s motion to dismiss is always subject to reconsideration. Sawyer v. Sawyer, 182 Okl. 348, 77 P.2d 703, 704 [1938]; Mount v. Schulte, 193 Okl. 335, 143 P.2d 424, 426 [1943]; Red Eagle v. Cannon, 198 Okl. 330, 177 P.2d 841, 842 [1947]; Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. American Airlines, Inc., Okl., 408 P.2d 789, 793 [1965]; Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. v. McBroom, Okl.App., 526 P.2d 509, 510 [1974]. The January 12th order does not preclude us from reexamining our cognizance of this appeal. Nor is it too late to dismiss it now.
II.
ASSUMING THE APPEAL IS PROPERLY HERE, THE TRIAL COURT’S REFUSAL TO SUSPEND THE AGENCY DECISION PENDING JUDICIAL REVIEW, COUPLED WITH ORU’S COMPLETION OF THE HOSPITAL FACILITY, PLACES THIS APPEAL IN A POSTURE PRE-PACKAGED FOR ORU’S VICTORY BY A FAIT ACCOMPLI
The state/federal dual regulatory system3 for “institutional health services” requires a license for much more than the actual operation of a new hospital or of an additional wing. It embraces both “offering or development” 4 of proposed objects. The phrase clearly includes everything from public solicitation of funds and construction of facilities to rendition of services.5 Without a CON no hospital bond issue can be sold. Any unlicensed “offering or development” activity constitutes a misdemeanor.6 *324When ORU completed the hospital construction, it did not stop short of performing a function licensed by its CON. It had moved far past the point of commencement and well into the main arena of a statutorily regulated activity even though the hospital had not yet opened its doors. In short, since OHPC’s decision in its favor ORU has been in the process of carrying on functions authorized by its unstayed certificate [CON] — not just some activity preparatory to the licensed operations under it.
Assuming the appeal is properly here, my other concern — equally serious as that for our jurisdiction in the case — is for the posture in which it comes here. It is pre-pack-aged for but a single possible form of practical relief affordable — ORU’s victory by a fait accompli. The situation results primarily from the trial court’s refusal to stay, pending judicial review, the decision of the Oklahoma Health Planning Commission [OHPC] granting ORU its CON. Aided by an ample reservoir of available funds secured from private donations, and unfettered by the restraining hand of a judicial stay order, ORU proceeded to develop and complete the proposed hospital project.7 The erection of that costly facility does now significantly impair the range of practical choices available to us in deciding this appeal. If the order appealed from remains unreversed — here and now — the trial court’s eventual disposition of the case might condemn to idleness a valuable community resource — at least until another, equally lucrative and fitting, purpose may be found for it.8 In the context of an administrative proceeding, the appellee, if victorious on appeal, could not secure a mandatory injunction to require ORU’s dismantling of the hospital facility. Cf. Moore v. White, Oki, 323 P.2d 352, 355-356 [1958]. Absent most compelling reasons, the judiciary is loath injuriously to affect one’s valuable investment made in reliance on a license.9
*325So long as this presumably single-purpose building is allowed to remain standing and is unoccupied by some ORU department unrelated to health sciences, it will likely spur ORU’s determined efforts to press upon the community its never-to-be withdrawn offer of hospital service to be rendered at the university’s medical school. The problem has a distinctly recurrent dimensional sweep. Practical relief here is hence obviously restricted to but a single choice — the option followed by the court’s opinion. I do not feel comfortable being placed in this decisional straitjacket. I would declare this controversy moot10 because the court is impotent to grant any form of practical relief affordable other than handing ORU its victory by a fait accompli. Moreover, I feel that judicial process cannot be administered in the very framework in which it is constitutionally mandated — with detachment and neutrality — when a court is left without the complete and unimpeded freedom to choose from a full range of alternatives dictated by the rule of law rather than by the narrow demands of economic reality and convenience.
ORU’s successful decision before the agency [OHPC] has now been carried into execution. It cannot be undone here. Public perception of the judiciary’s dispute-settling role can hardly be enhanced when a court willingly turns itself into a government bureau to perform no function other than as registrar and herald of one’s CON claim which is now irreversibly perfected and judicially unalterable.
I would dismiss the appeal. When the district court reaches this case for the second time, I am confident it will make a disposition that is proper under the facts which have transpired since the appeal was brought here.

. In Bohms v. Gardner, 381 F.2d 283, 285 [8th Cir. 1967] Justice Blackmun, then a circuit judge, aptly stated the federal rule: “Although the Secretary [of Health, Education and Welfare] made a final administrative decision for purposes of court review ... no such decision was made at the district court level. And it is district court action which measures our appellate jurisdiction... The district court merely vacated the Secretary’s decision and remanded the case for reconsideration and, possibly, the reception of additional evidence. It neither granted nor denied the relief the claimant seeks. The adverse agency decision so vacated may of course be reinstated in due course but it may go the other way. Until the Secretary acts on the remand we have no insight as to what his eventual decision will be. Thus, in the words of Catlin v. United States, [324 U.S. 229, 233, 65 S.Ct. 631, 633, 89 L.Ed. 911 [1945]], supra, the litigation had not reached its end on the merits and there is more for the court to do than execute the judgment, or, as Judge Ridge said, in Smith v. Sherman, supra, p. 551 of 349 F.2d, the district court’s action by no means was ‘the last word of the law.’ ” [Emphasis added],

. A decision in which three justices, including myself, did not concur.

. The state act applicable to this case is that found in 63 O.S.Supp.1979 §§ 2651-2656.

. 63 O.S.Supp.1979 § 2651. The National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974 [PL 93-641 § 1523(a)(4)(A), 42 U.S.C. 300 m-2] provides that the state CON program shall include a review and determination of need “prior to the time such services, facilities, and organizations are offered or developed and substantial expenditures are undertaken in preparation for such offering or development”. [Emphasis added]. The infinitive “to develop”, when used in connection with health services, means “to undertake those activities which on their completion will result in the offer of a new institutional health service”. 42 CFR 122.301.

. See annotation on validity and construction of statute requiring establishment of “need” as precondition to operation of hospital or other facilities for the care of sick people in 61 ALR3d 278, 280. For origin and analysis of the state/federal regulatory scheme for institutional health services see: Chayet & Sonnereich, Certificate of Need: An Expanding Regulatory Concept [MIP Publication 1978] and Hyman, Health Regulation: Certificate of Need and 1122 [An Aspen Publication 1977].

. 63 O.S.Supp.1979 § 2656.

.The state/federal regulatory scheme subjects to licensing requirements [CON] not only the construction of, but also public fund raising for, any new or additional institutional health services. Unfunded projects must await the issuance of a CON before a public promotion or solicitation campaign may begin. Only funded projects, i. e. those requiring no public promotion, can be ready to start construction at the very moment the CON is issued. A CON holder of a pre-funded project — such as ORU — has the present capacity immediately to enjoy the fruits of an agency’s decision. Goodin v. State ex rel. Okl. Welfare Commission, 436 F.Supp. 583, 586 [W.D.Okl.1977]. A CON is clearly more than a license to operate a hospital. It is a permit for a substantial investment in a health facility and an eligibility status for participation in available government programs. So far as the record discloses, the ORU project, on review here, had all the needed resources— either at hand or firmly committed — when the CON was issued. This gave ORU a position far superior to that occupied by a nonfunded CON holder. When, as here, it is clearly shown that the CON holder has sufficient funds at his disposal to complete developing the proposed health facility during the pendency of judicial review, a stay appears essential, and must hence be regarded as absolutely mandatory, to assure fair, effectual and evenhanded application of judicial process in a district court appeal from an agency’s decision granting a CON. The trial judge did not so view protestants’ [appellees’] stay request. It was denied in the exercise of his discretion. That decision has not been presented for review here. See Davis v. Secretary, Dept. of Health, Education & Welfare, 386 F.2d 429 [4th Cir. 1967], The second attempt to secure a stay occurred shortly after the district court, on December 1, 1978, reversed the OHPC’s decision. The trial judge would not then act on the request, believing that the filing of this appeal operated to divest him of all cognizance in the case. His view was manifestly in error. Rule 1.13, Rules on Perfecting a Civil Appeal, 12 O.S.1971, Ch. 15, App. 2; Mapco, Inc. v. Means, Okl., 538 P.2d 593, 596 [1975]; Tisdale v. Wheeler Bros. Grain Co., Inc., Okl., 599 P.2d 1104, 1106-1107 [1979]. Appellee, who shortly after the filing of this appeal had attempted to command, by mandamus from this court, the trial judge’s exercise of his statutory stay powers, ceased pressing for the writ after this court’s January 12, 1979 order denying the dismissal motion.

. While it is true that ORU resisted a stay by announcing that it was willing to proceed with the construction “at its peril”, we can have no assurance now that its position will remain unchanged when it becomes unable to operate the hospital under its hard-fought-for CON.

. Churchill Tabernacle v. Federal Communications Commission, 160 F.2d 244, 247 [D.C.App.1947]; Evangelical Lutheran Synod v. Federal C. Com’n., 105 F.2d 793, 796 [D.C.App.1939],

. When the court allows a licensee to enter upon a regulated activity following an investment of appreciable funds, the issue of his license eligibility may be regarded as mooted. The doctrine of mootness applies in judicial review of agency action. In re Peoples, 296 N.C. 109, 250 S.E.2d 890 [N.C.1978]; National Ass’n of Securities Dealers v. SEC, 143 F.2d 62, 63 [3rd Cir. 1944].