Marin Hospital District v. Department of Health

The state Department of Health and its director appeal from a judgment in administrative mandamus granting a peremp toiy writ commanding the department to issue to the Marin Hospital District a certificate of exemption with respect to the district’s acquisition of a computerized tomographic full-body scanner. The appeal lies. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 904.1, subd. (a); 1094.5, subd. (f).)

This appeal poses the fundamental question whether the department’s denial of exemption to the district on the basis of the district’s noncompliance with two of the requirements of the department’s pertinent emergency regulation (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 22, § 90603, subd. (e)(1), (2)) was valid. A portion of this issue and most of the remaining issues in the case were decided adversely to the department in the very recent decision of this panel in Verdugo Hills Hospital, Inc. v. Department of Health (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 957 [ 152 Cal.Rptr. 263 ]. There we held that (1) the validity of subdivision (e)(2) of the regulation now before us might be challenged by a petitioner in an administrative mandamus proceeding where the basis of the challenge was that the portion attacked was not a reasonable…