CHARLESTON – West Virginia’s Intermediate Court of Appeals has dismissed CAMC’s challenge to a state agency’s finding that Thomas Memorial Hospital’s Hurricane facility complied with certificate-of-need law.
In a unanimous October 7 decision, the ICA ruled the court lacked authority to hear the appeal. That left the West Virginia Health Care Authority’s finding undisturbed but did not decide whether Thomas needed a certificate of need to provide the disputed services.
Instead, the court concluded that the agency’s investigation did not produce the type of ruling Charleston Area Medical Center could appeal under the statutes it cited.
“Therefore, based on the foregoing, we grant Thomas’s motion to dismiss and dismiss this appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,” the court wrote.
The dispute began in 2024 when CAMC asked the authority to investigate whether Thomas was operating an ambulatory health care facility in Hurricane without a required certificate of need. CAMC claimed Thomas had added health care services without obtaining state approval and asked the authority to require Thomas to stop those services until it secured a certificate.
CAMC cited a state law requiring a certificate of need for the addition of services that a health care facility had not regularly offered during the preceding 12 months.
The authority asked Thomas to respond to the allegations in November 2024. After receiving correspondence from both hospitals, it issued a “Potential Violation Order” on August 13, 2025, finding no violation.
Thomas had provided information showing that “at no time has the Teays Valley Location ceased all operations for twelve (12) months,” the authority found. It also determined that Thomas had “not performed any health care service which they are not currently authorized to offer,” according to the court’s account of the agency order.
CAMC appealed. Then Thomas moved to dismiss that appeal, arguing the authority had acted in an investigative capacity rather than an adjudicative one. The authority also claimed the appeals court lacked jurisdiction.
The court agreed, rejecting CAMC’s arguments that three state statutes authorized an appeal. Its decision turned on a distinction between an agency investigation and a contested case – a proceeding in which specific parties’ legal rights, duties, interests or privileges must be determined after an agency hearing.
“The record demonstrates that the HCA did not hold a hearing in this matter; rather, the matter was resolved after an exchange of correspondence between the HCA and Thomas,” the court wrote. CAMC acknowledged in its reply brief the proceeding was not a contested case.
Still, CAMC argued a statute permitting appeals of final decisions in certificate-of-need reviews allowed the court to hear the case. It maintained the statute’s reference to the West Virginia Administrative Procedures Act supplied the appeal process and grounds for review, rather than limiting which decisions could be appealed.
The court rejected that interpretation, finding the statute required appeals to proceed under provisions governing contested administrative cases. Because the investigation was not a contested case, the resulting order was not appealable under that statute, the court said. It reached the same conclusion about another statute CAMC cited governing review of authority decisions.
The court also rejected CAMC’s argument that the order could be reviewed as an administrative declaratory ruling. CAMC had not requested such a ruling or followed the required procedures, including addressing its request to the authority’s chairman and providing a verification signed by its chief executive officer.
“CAMC did not actually request a declaratory ruling in its August 15, 2024, letter to the HCA; in fact, CAMC did not request a formal ruling from the HCA at all,” the court wrote.
Instead, CAMC sought an investigation and enforcement against Thomas. The court noted that a declaratory ruling would bind the authority and the party requesting it, but would not bind Thomas as a third party.
CAMC also relied on an earlier case involving St. Joseph’s Hospital of Buckhannon and Stonewall Jackson Memorial Hospital, in which the appeals court concluded it had jurisdiction over an authority determination of reviewability – a decision about whether a proposed health service requires a certificate of need or an exemption.
The court distinguished that process from an investigation into a possible violation. It said CAMC had identified no statute or rule giving a third party the right to file a complaint against another entity and participate in the authority’s resulting investigation. The earlier ruling therefore did not establish jurisdiction over CAMC’s appeal, the court concluded.
Because it lacked jurisdiction, the court did not address CAMC’s three assignments of error challenging the agency’s decision. Chief Judge Daniel W. Greear and Judges Charles O. Lorensen and S. Ryan White concurred in the dismissal.
CAMC was represented by Thomas G. Casto, Webster J. Arceneaux III and Jackson D. Snavely of Lewis Gianola. Thomas was represented by Albert F. Sebok, Alaina N. Crislip and Neil C. Brown of Jackson Kelly. The HCA is represented by Attorney General J.B. McCuskey and Matthew K. Niu.
West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals case number 25-ICA-369
