Ingram v. Tenn. Dep't of Health

ALTON EARL INGRAM, JR., M.D., Plaintiff, v. TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, et al., Defendants.

NO. 3:17-cv-01565

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE NASHVILLE DIVISION

September 27, 2019

JUDGE RICHARDSON

ORDER AND MEMORANDUM OPINION

Pending before the Court are a Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge (Docket No. 31) and 16 Objections filed by Plaintiff (Docket No. 35).¹ The Magistrate Judge recommends that Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Doc. No. 17) be granted.

When a magistrate judge issues a report and recommendation regarding a dispositive pretrial matter, the district court must review de novo any portion of the report and recommendation to which a proper objection is made. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). The district judge may accept, reject, or modify the recommended disposition, review further evidence, or return the matter to the magistrate judge with instructions. Id.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3), the Court has reviewed de novo the portions of the Report and Recommendation to which Plaintiff objects, the Objections, and the file. For the reasons stated herein, the Objections of the Plaintiff (except Objection 16) areoverruled, and the Report and Recommendation is adopted and approved in part, modified in part, and taken under advisement in part, as set forth below.

BACKGROUND²

This years-long dispute began when Plaintiff Ingram, who is a citizen of California, was suspended from the practice of medicine by the State of Florida in 2003. In October 2006, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners ("the Board"), after finding out about the Florida suspension, suspended Plaintiff's Tennessee medical license for three years. This lawsuit is a result of Plaintiff's attempts to lift the suspension of his Tennessee medical license and the Board's alleged actions, inactions and decisions concerning that license. In May of 2018, after Board hearings and state court appeals, the Board lifted the suspension of Plaintiff's license, and Plaintiff has held an unrestricted Tennessee medical license since then.

The Magistrate Judge identified the following remaining claims³ of Plaintiff's Complaint as: (1) a constitutional claim for damages for violation of due process against Defendants Huddleston, Zanolli, Arnold, Ali, and Saunders in their individual capacities; (2) a constitutional claim for damages against Defendants Huddleston, Zanolli, Arnold, Ali, and Saunders in their individual capacities for depriving Plaintiff of his property interest in his medical license without due process; (3) state law fraud claims for damages against Defendants Arnold, Saunders and Huddleston; (4) a state law libel claim for damages against Defendants Huddleston and Zanolli;(5) a state law civil conspiracy claim against Defendants Huddleston and Zanolli; and (6) a request for declaratory relief against Defendants Huddleston, Arnold, and Saunders. (Doc. No. 31 at 10).⁴

The Magistrate Judge opined that Plaintiff's claims for declaratory relief implicate Younger⁵ abstention concerns such that this Court's abstention is appropriate and recommended dismissal of the claims for declaratory relief without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.⁶ She also opined that Tennessee law provided Plaintiff with an adequate, post-deprivation remedy (procedures under the Tennessee Uniform Administrative Procedures Act and appeals through the state court system) for the alleged denial of procedural due process and, therefore, Plaintiff failed to state a claim for denial of procedural due process in his First Cause of Action. The Magistrate Judge interpreted Plaintiff's due process claim in his Second Cause of Action as a substantive due process claim and opined that that claim is time-barred. Accordingly, she recommended that both the substantive due process and the procedural due process claims be dismissed for failure to state claims. Finally, the Magistrate Judge recommended that the Court decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims. (Doc. No. 31).

TENNESSEE UNIFORM ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES ACT

Plaintiff's Board proceedings and appeals to the Chancery Court were governed by the Tennessee Uniform Administrative Procedures Act ("TUAPA"). TUAPA provides that a person aggrieved by a final decision in an administrative contested case is entitled to judicial review,which shall be the only available method of judicial review. Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-322(a)(1). Proceedings for judicial review of an administrative decision are instituted by filing a petition for review in chancery court. Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-322(b)(1)(A)(i). The review shall be conducted by the court without a jury and shall be confined to the record, except in cases of alleged irregularities in procedure before the agency not shown in the record, proof thereon may be taken. Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-322(g).

The reviewing court may reverse or modify the administrative decision if the rights of the petitioner have been prejudiced because the administrative findings, inferences, conclusions, or decisions are in violation of constitutional or statutory provisions, in excess of the statutory authority of the agency, made upon unlawful procedure, arbitrary or capricious, characterized by an abuse of discretion or clearly unwarranted exercise of discretion, or unsupported by evidence that is both substantial and material in light of the entire record. Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-322(h). In addition, TUAPA provides that an aggrieved party may obtain a review of any final judgment of the chancery court by appeal to the court of appeals of Tennessee. Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-323(a). The administrative record certified to the chancery court and the record in the chancery court shall constitute the record in an appeal. Any evidence taken in court pursuant to § 4-5-322(g) shall also become a part of the record. Tenn. Code Ann. 4-5-323(b).

SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS⁷

OBJECTION 1 - Plaintiff objects to the Magistrate Judge's stating that the state proceedings in the Davidson County Chancery Court ("Chancery Court") offered Plaintiff anadequate opportunity to raise his constitutional claims.⁸ (Doc. No. 31 at 18). Plaintiff asserts that the authority upon which the Magistrate Judge relied, Watts v. Burkhart, 854 F. 2d 839 (6th Cir. 1988), was overturned by a later case (the appeal after remand of the same case), Watts v. Burkhart, 978 F.2d 269 (6th Cir. 1992). But the 1992 Watts case did not overturn the 1988 Watts case. The portion of the 1992 case that Plaintiff cites is in a dissenting opinion, not the majority opinion.

In any event, the proposition for which the Magistrate Judge cited the 1988 Watts opinion has been reiterated in cases involving administrative appeals since then. For example, in Xcaliber Int'l, Ltd., LLC v. Gerregano, 290 F. Supp. 3d 747 (M.D. Tenn. 2018), the court, citing Watts, held that the plaintiff had an adequate opportunity to raise its constitutional claims under TUAPA because TUAPA expressly contemplates that a petitioner will be afforded an opportunity to raise constitutional issues "concerning the manner in which the initial hearing before the Board was conducted." Id. at 754. Moreover, in Patterson v. Gibbons, No. 1:16-cv-170, 2017 WL 563986, at * 4 (E.D. Tenn. Feb. 10, 2017), the court noted that the chancery court, in reviewing an agency decision, may "reverse or modify" the administrative decision if it is in violation of constitutional or statutory provisions. Id. (citing Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-322(h)). Thus, said the court, the statute of review expressly contemplates that a petitioner will be afforded an opportunity to raise constitutional issues or statutory arguments. Id.

Plaintiff argues that because his final petition to the Chancery Court concerning the Board's decision was held to be moot, he was never given an opportunity to litigate the claims he has asserted in this Court. Plaintiff specifically alleged abuse of discretion, statutory violations, andconstitutional claims in appealing the Board's 2013 Order to the Chancery Court (see Docket No. 23-1 at 1). Plaintiff could and should (if he truly wished to pursue those claims) have appealed the Chancery Court Order declaring his Petition moot, because those claims went unaddressed by the Chancery Court and (unlike other aspects of his Petition) were not moot; however, Plaintiff did not file an appeal of that Order. Moreover, following the Board's lifting of Plaintiff's suspension, Plaintiff moved to amend his February 2017 Petition for Review (in the Chancery Court) to, among other things, complain about erroneous rulings and procedures at the Board's December 2016 hearing (at which he alleges these three defendants lied) (see Doc. No. 30-1 at 7). The Chancery Court denied that motion to amend, and Plaintiff could have appealed that Order to address his outstanding complaints, but he did not.

A party may not procure federal intervention by terminating the state judicial process prematurely—forgoing the state appeal to attack a trial court's judgment in federal court. Alexander v. Morgan, 353 F. Supp. 3d 622, 628 (W.D. Ky. 2018). Put simply, a "necessary concomitant of Younger is that a party [wishing to contest in federal court the judgment of a state judicial tribunal] must exhaust his state appellate remedies before seeking relief in the District Court." Id. (citing New Orleans Public Serv., Inc. v. Council of the City of New Orleans, 491 U.S. 350, 369 (1989)).

Plaintiff contends that the deference afforded agency decisions prevented the Chancery Court's consideration of his constitutional claims. To the contrary, as noted in Patterson, TUAPA provides that the reviewing court may reverse or modify an agency decision "if the rights of the petitioner have been prejudiced because the administrative findings, inferences, conclusions or decisions are: (1) in violation of constitutional or statutory provisions." Tenn. Code Ann. §...