Riverside city has the authority to license ambulances, the Court of Appeal agreed in a published Feb. 7 opinion.
The ruling strikes down an appeal from Symons Ambulance. The ambulance company claimed city employees illegally stopped them from delivering patients to hospitals, and that the city created an illegal monopoly for American Medical Response (AMR). Both arguments were rejected by the courts.
Symons Ambulance’s case, filed Jan. 20, 2016, asked for a court order that would stop the city from interfering with Symons services.
Symons and their attorneys did not reply to requests to comment, and the Riverside City Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Symons was started in Bishop, California, more than 30 years ago, and operates in Inyo, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties, according to their complaint. They are jointly owned by EMTs, paramedics, nurses and physicians.
They provide medical transport services to high-risk events—like motorsports—but also provide inter-hospital transfer services and telemedicine. They started operating in Riverside County in 2008, and in Riverside city in 2010.
Their complaint claims they were harassed by city employees and AMR employees, starting in 2014.
“Both AMR supervisor known only as J. Shelton and (then-Deputy Fire Chief Mike) Esparza have stopped Symons emergency medical technicians on calls, telling them they are operating illegally, preventing them from parking, asking for their credentials, taking pictures and blocking them in parking lots preventing them from carrying on their duties,” their complaint says.
The complaint says that these actions violate California Penal Code Section 1797, which prohibits the obstruction of emergency medical technicians.
In October 2014, Symons was delivering a critical care patient on a ventilator to a hospital.
“Despite the extreme situation of the patient, AMR Supervisor Shelton barred Symons from parking at an open emergency room parking slot. The Symons nurse had to exit the ambulance and tell Shelton that there was a patient on board with life threatening conditions. Shelton instead forced Symons to park on a street, on a steep and unreasonably unsafe downhill slope, requiring that Symons EMT staff and nurses disembark the patient under precarious conditions, and delayed delivery of the patient to required emergency services,” the complaint says.
Shelton called Esparza, who told Symons not to operate in Riverside. The complaint claims Esparza was also a former AMR employee.
The city interfered with Symons 25 times from Oct. 13, 2014 to Aug. 25, 2015, and issued Symons at least four citations in 2015, the complaint says.
Symons argued that Riverside was not allowed to regulate ambulance services, because the California Emergency Services Act (EMS) deprived cities of that right. Even if Riverside had the authority, Symons argued, that authority would be applied only to rides that started in Riverside city, not rides that end in the city. They also claimed the city’s municipal code restricting ambulance operations also violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by giving AMR a de facto monopoly on in-city ambulance rides.
Riverside city successfully argued that they had the right to regulate ambulances, despite most cities’ being deprived of that right under the EMS. They had been regulating ambulances before the EMS was passed, in 1980. Their ability to regulate was grandfathered in, the Court of Appeal found.
In 1975, Riverside had given the Goodhew Ambulance Service the authority to operate emergency ambulances, the record showed.
San Bernardino Superior Judge Thomas Garza entered judgment for Riverside on Aug. 18, 2021.
Symons’ appeal unsuccessfully argued that testimony from city employees should not have been admitted, that Garza’s finding was not supported by enough evidence, and that the municipal code is invalid automatically because it violates antitrust law.
Riverside had filed their own cross-complaint against Symons, which resulted in an injunction against the company from operating in the city. The injunction was affirmed by the Court of Appeal June 21, 2017.
Case information
Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, Associate Justice Richard Fields wrote the decision, which Justices Douglas Miller and Carol Codrington joined.
Theodore Stream and Jamie Wrage of Upland’s Stream Kim Hicks Wrage & Alfaro represented Symons.
City Attorney Phaedra Norton, Assistant City Attorney Rebecca McKee-Riembold and Deputy City Attorney Brandon Mercer represented Riverside.
Case No. CIVDS1516027
Appellate Case No. E078113
Read the complaint here
Read the ruling here.
