Murphy v. Advocate Health and Hosps. Corp. — Dec. 2016 (Summary)

MEDICAL STAFF PRIVILEGES

Murphy v. Advocate Health and Hosps. Corp.
No. 4-16-0863 (Ill. App. Ct. Dec. 8, 2016)

The Appellate Court of Illinois for the Fourth District reversed a lower court’s denial of a physician’s request for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) against a hospital which medical executive committee voted to terminate his privileges based on findings from an external peer review and the committee’s review of care the physician provided to a specific patient, which care had already resulted in a summary suspension of the physician’s privileges that the physician had previously sued to enjoin and which was already pending before the court.

The physician objected to the committee moving forward with its recommendation to terminate his privileges because the committee was basing its decision, in part, on the earlier summary suspension of his clinical privileges, which was the action that the physician had already sued to enjoin and which was in the interlocutory appeal stage before the court, scheduled to be heard in January 2017.   The lower court denied this second request for a TRO, finding that the hospital, in making the recommendation to terminate his privileges, had acted within its bylaws and that the physician failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits of his claim.

The court reversed the lower court’s ruling, however, reasoning that the physician did not have to show a likelihood of success; rather, that he raised a fair question about the existence of his right and that the court should preserve the status quo until his case was decided on the merits. Consequently, because denying the physician’s request to preserve the status quo would have essentially rendered meaningless the physician’s appeal pertaining to the summary suspension, the court reversed the lower court’s judgment and granted the physician’s request for a TRO.