The Connecticut Appellate Court has ruled that Day Kimball Healthcare, which owns Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam, cannot challenge the state's approval of a competing surgery center in Plainfield, because losing patients and revenue to a competitor does not give it the legal standing to appeal. The courts did not decide whether the center, an affiliate of Hartford HealthCare, should have been approved; they decided that Day Kimball was not a party the law lets ask.
The decision in Day Kimball Healthcare, Inc. v. Department of Public Health (AC 48313) was written by Judge Seeley for a panel that included Judges Moll and Suarez. This is the advance-release version; its official release date is Nov. 10, 2026, and it is subject to technical correction.
What the hospital argued
Connecticut requires a certificate of need, a state approval, before a new outpatient surgery center can open. HHC Plainfield Surgery Center, LLC applied July 22, 2019, for a center at 584 Norwich Road with two operating rooms, and the state approved it by a settlement agreement and order dated Jan. 25, 2021.
Day Kimball, a nonprofit, joined the state review as an intervenor in March 2020 and appealed the approval to Superior Court. Its chief financial officer testified that more than 50 percent of the hospital's outpatient surgery volume comes from towns in the center's proposed service area. Its appeal said a 30 to 40 percent drop in outpatient surgery and endoscopy cases would cut its operating results by $2.5 million to $3.5 million, and that it relies on those cases to underwrite services with heavy Medicaid use, including obstetrics, behavioral health and the emergency department.
Why lost business did not count
To appeal a state decision, a party must be "aggrieved," meaning the decision harms a specific, personal and legal interest of its own or an interest the statute protects; without that, a court lacks jurisdiction, or authority to hear the case. Superior Court Judge Budzik dismissed the appeal on those grounds on Dec. 10, 2024, and the Appellate Court affirmed. It held that Day Kimball's financial and competitive interests are outside what the certificate-of-need law, Sec. 19a-639 (a), protects, and that Day Kimball had shown no specific, personal and legal interest in a competitor's certificate.
The court said the state Supreme Court's 2025 decision in High Watch Recovery Center v. Department of Public Health, which involved a treatment facility challenging a competitor's certificate, controlled the outcome. The general rule, the opinion says, is that harm from competition does not make a party aggrieved. The exception is where the legislature has written protection for competitors into a statute, as a 1985 motor-carrier law did by requiring the state to consider the effect of a new license on existing carriers. The certificate-of-need statute has no such language; it directs the state to look at public need, "not any individual market competitor's financial interests," the court said, quoting High Watch. It also rejected Day Kimball's argument that its interest went beyond competition, saying the appeal rested on "allegedly devastating financial harm."
What the opinion does not say
Under this opinion, an existing hospital's expected loss of patients and revenue to a competitor is not enough, by itself, to let it appeal a certificate-of-need approval. The opinion applies the 2019 version of the law. It does not say who else could challenge such an approval.
The Judicial Branch says the Nov. 10 release date starts the time limits for post-opinion motions and for petitions asking the state Supreme Court to hear a case. Day Kimball's next step is not known.
