Court Opinion

ID: 9699854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:53:57.309298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:58.682095
License: Public Domain

JAMES S. GETTY, Judge, Specially Assigned, dissenting.
Respectfully, I disagree. The majority, by affirming the decision of the trial court, necessarily concludes that Presbyterian University Hospital had sufficient contacts with the State of Maryland to justify Maryland’s assumption of personal jurisdiction over this negligence action for wrongful death. *333The tenuous, if not singular, reed supporting this proposition arises from Presbyterian’s execution of an agreement with the Maryland State Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, plus the correspondence generated by that agreement. These provider agreements relate to medical care services available to eligible recipients of the Maryland Medical Assistance Program, and to reimbursement for services rendered. Both federal and state (Maryland Medicaid) hospital regulations for the Title XIX (Medicaid) Program require, as a condition of participation, that these provider agreements be executed.
Complying with federal and state law in order to seek reimbursement for medical services rendered in Pennsylvania to non-resident patients does not constitute, in my view, an affirmative decision by Presbyterian to conduct business in Maryland. The provider agreement is simply the mandated vehicle whereby Maryland will reimburse Presbyterian for services rendered Maryland residents who unilaterally opt to have surgical procedures performed at Presbyterian rather than elsewhere.
Presbyterian is a designated national referral center for liver, heart, and lung transplantations. The Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene acknowledged this designation by letter to Presbyterian dated June 12, 1987, adding, “The services your hospital will provide to Maryland Medicaid recipients will be greatly appreciated.” Obviously, Presbyterian would be listed in COMAR. as a specialty hospital after the provider agreement was finalized. Any attempt, however, to equate a COMAR listing with a paid advertisement in the yellow pages of a telephone directory, as evidence of contacts establishing jurisdiction to maintain a lawsuit in Maryland, serves only to reinforce my conclusion that recognizable evidence of “minimum contacts” sufficient to establish jurisdiction, required by due process, does not exist in this case.
Presbyterian, clearly, in my view, has not purposefully availed itself of the privileges of conducting activities within the forum state that could lead to being subjected to personal *334jurisdiction actions at law. Although Presbyterian has stated that Maryland patients account for less than one-half of one percent of the patients admitted annually, I would dismiss the numbers as being irrelevant. Whether one or five hundred Maryland residents unilaterally seek admission to the hospital in the course of a year has no bearing on the question of whether Presbyterian has engaged in activities subjecting it to the laws of the forum state.
Even if following federal and state mandates to obtain reimbursement for services rendered out-of-state patients could be construed to satisfy the “minimum contacts” making Presbyterian amenable to suit, I would hold that the subjection of Presbyterian to in personam jurisdiction in Maryland would be fundamentally unfair, substantially unjust, and a contravention of due process.
Maryland certainly has an interest in deterring negligent medical services, both intrastate and interstate. Its principal state interest, evidenced by DHMH’s letter to Presbyterian, is to obtain the best medical services available for its citizens regardless of state lines. When a patient elects to cross state lines to receive professional services without having been solicited, it seems clear to me that the patient should reasonably expect that he may need to return for a periodic checkup, and that he may need to return if he needs to seek redress for services improperly rendered.
Requiring a nationally recognized specialty hospital to defend lawsuits filed in whatever jurisdiction a former patient may have returned to after discharge would be fundamentally unfair, prohibitively expensive, and not in the best interests of the hospital involved or of the patients therein. Such a result may well jeopardize the chances of non-residents being accepted by Presbyterian or any other similar institution.
I would resolve this case by applying the principles of general, not specific, jurisdiction, since the cause of action is unrelated to the contacts, thus requiring evidence of “systematic general business conduct ... to sustain jurisdiction.” See Camelback II. Presbyterian, without contradiction,
*3351. is a non-profit Pennsylvania corporation providing health care services solely in Pennsylvania;
2. owns no property, office, agents, or license to do business in Maryland; and
3. sells no products, provides no services, pays no taxes, has no telephone listing, and does not advertise or solicit business in Maryland.
The facts herein do not meet the International Shoe test for personal jurisdiction. Both Camelback II and Gelineau v. New York University Hospital, I believe, are dispositive of this case. I am not unmindful that this was a tragic case and the survivors had a cause of action for negligence. That cause of action, however, arose in Pennsylvania and I find no valid basis for filing the suit in Maryland other than the convenience of belatedly joining the non-resident hospital with the several Maryland defendants who were already parties to the tort action. Convenience and a strained effort to establish jurisdiction will not suffice. I would reverse the decision of the trial court.