Minnesota Supreme Court sides with medical staff

The Minnesota Supreme Court recently ruled that a hospital’s medical staff did have legal standing to sue the hospital’s administration, overturning two lower court decisions.

 

In the case, the medical staff, chief of staff, and chief of staff-elect of Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center had sued the administration after it enacted new bylaws without the medical staff’s consent. According to the medical staff’s lawyer, the new bylaws allowed the administration to appoint new members to the medical staff with its approval, interfered with who the medical staff could elect as its leaders, and took away the staff’s ability to weigh in patient care issues.

 

The previous lower court rulings had sided with the hospital administration, saying that the medical staff lacked the legal capacity to sue. In addition to overturning that decision, the Supreme Court found that the hospital bylaws constituted a contract between the medical staff and the hospital.