Clean & Clear Advantage, LLC v. West Virginia Department of Health, Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification

Summary

The Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed the dismissal of Clean & Clear Advantage, LLC’s civil action against OHFLAC for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held that Clean & Clear was required to exhaust its administrative remedies by pursuing its appeal of OHFLAC’s licensure-amendment denial through the ICA, and that the futility exception did not apply. Because Clean & Clear abandoned its prior appeal before a merits decision, it failed to exhaust its administrative remedies.

Holdings

1. When the statutory and regulatory scheme governing behavioral health-center licensure provides an administrative process capable of affording an adequate remedy, a claimant must exhaust that process before seeking judicial intervention in circuit court, even absent an express statutory exhaustion mandate.
2. The futility or inadequacy exception to administrative exhaustion did not apply because the administrative appellate process could have provided the relief Clean & Clear sought.
3. Because the applicable administrative scheme provided a right to appeal the Board of Review's final decision to the ICA, Clean & Clear was required to prosecute that appeal to completion in order to exhaust its administrative remedies.
4. Filing a notice of appeal was insufficient to exhaust administrative remedies where Clean & Clear failed to perfect the appeal and the ICA dismissed it before a merits decision.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Clean & Clear was required to exhaust administrative remedies before seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in circuit court.
2. Whether the administrative-exhaustion requirement was excused because pursuing an appeal to the Intermediate Court of Appeals would have been futile.
3. Whether Clean & Clear exhausted its administrative remedies by filing, but not perfecting, its appeal from the Board of Review's decision to the Intermediate Court of Appeals.
4. Whether the ICA's dismissal of the unperfected appeal constituted a merits adjudication sufficient to satisfy exhaustion.

Disposition

affirmed