Florida judge upholds status of medical staff bylaws

The trial court found that a special law applying to only one county gave a hospital board extraordinary authority and is unconstitutional.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. April 17, 2006.

Florida physicians won a major courtroom victory in a power struggle with a hospital that lasted nearly a decade, averting what doctors called a precedent that could have put the state's medical staffs at the mercy of hospital boards.

Instead, doctors say, the case provides yet another court decision that upholds medical staff bylaws as a binding contract hospitals cannot ignore.

A judge in the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Leon County ruled in March that the St. Lucie County Hospital Governance Law is unconstitutional. The court found that the law's sole purpose was to allow Lawnwood Medical Center Inc. to override the peer review process and physicians' appeal rights outlined in the medical staff bylaws. Because no hospitals outside the county have such "far-reaching" powers, the court concluded the law violates the state's constitution by giving one corporation a special privilege.

Although the ruling is likely to be appealed, doctors say the court, for now, has made it clear that hospitals must play by the rules.

"Most importantly, the court reaffirmed that the bylaws of the medical staff should be adhered to and once formulated and approved by the [hospital] board cannot be disregarded when a dispute occurs," said William B. Monnig, MD, chair of the Organized Medical Staff Section of the American Medical Association, which served as an adviser to the medical staff in the case.

The AMA/State Medical Societies Litigation Center also assisted with legal expenses.