Community hospitals seeking the legal ammunition to fight surgery centers may have found it in New Orleans, where a federal appeals court ruled that a public hospital did not violate antitrust laws when it demanded managed care contracts that excluded the competing surgery center across the street.

"The decision affirms that hospitals are allowed to lawfully compete with any privately-owned, for-profit facility that attempts to siphon off desirable services from the full-service, community-oriented hospital," says Michele Kidd Sutton, community resources officer at North Oaks Medical Center, a 215-bed public hospital in Hammond, La.