LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA, еt al. v. PATTY DAVIS, etc., et al.
No. SC19-1923
Supreme Court of Florida
May 26, 2022
No. SC19-1936 SHERIDAN RADIOLOGY SERVICES OF PINELLAS, INC., et al., Petitioners, vs. PATTY DAVIS, etc., et al., Respondents.
In this case we consider the interaction between the statutory remedy for prohibited consumer debt collection practices provided by the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA)1 and the provision of the Workers’ Compensation Law (WCL)2 vesting the Department of Financial Services (DFS) with exclusive jurisdiction to decide matters concerning workers’ compensаtion reimbursement. Before the Court for review is the decision of the Second District Court of Appeal in Davis v. Sheridan Healthcare, Inc., 281 So. 3d 1259 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019), in which the court held the WCL exclusive jurisdiction provision to be inapplicable as a bar to suit by an injured worker against a health care provider for prohibited debt collection practices. Id. at 1261. The Second District certified the following question to be of great public importancе:
DOES SECTION 440.13(11)(c) OF THE WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW PRECLUDE CIRCUIT COURT JURISDICTION OVER CLAIMS UNDER SECTION 559.77(1) OF THE FLORIDA CONSUMER COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT?
Id. at 1267. We have jurisdiction. See
We answer the certified question in the negative and approve the result reached by the Second District.
I
Patty Davis was injured during the course of her employment. Subsequently, Davis utilized workers’ compensation benefits to receive medical care for her work-related injuries. Davis received medical care from two providers: Sheridan Radiology Services of Pinellas, Inc., a subsidiary of Shеridan Healthcare, Inc. (Sheridan); and Laboratory Corporation of America and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (Labcorp). Thereafter, Sheridan and Labcorp repeatedly billed Davis directly for the medical care that she received.
Davis then filed two separate actions against Sheridan and Labcorp under
In response, Sheridan and Labcorp asserted that the trial courts lacked subject matter jurisdiction for the alleged FCCPA violations. Under Sheridan and Labcorp‘s reasoning,
The trial courts agreed with Sheridan and Labcorp and dismissed Davis‘s FCCPA claims. Davis appealed. In its consolidated opinion, the Second District held that “the WCL does not preclude Davis‘s claims filed against her workers’ compensation medical providers under
II
Subsection (11)(a) of
Subsection (11)(c)—which is the focus of the issue presented by this case—provides that DFS “has exclusive jurisdiction to decide any matters concerning reimbursemеnt, to resolve any overutilization dispute under subsection (7), and to decide any question concerning overutilization under subsection (8).” (Emphasis added.) The first mentioned subsection provides for remedies against carriers that improperly deny reimbursement, and the second subsection provides penalties against providers that engage in overutilization.
Subsection (7) establishes the administrative procеss for resolving “utilization and reimbursement disputes” between carriers and providers. Subsection (1)(q) defines “[r]eimbursement dispute” as “any disagreement between a health care provider or health care facility and carrier concerning payment for medical treatment.” Subsection (7)(d) provides that when DFS “finds an improper disallowance or improper adjustment of payment by an insurer, the insurer shаll reimburse the health care provider, facility, insurer, or employer.” Provision is made in subsection (7)(f) for the imposition of various penalties on “[a]ny carrier that engages in a pattern or practice of arbitrarily or unreasonably disallowing or reducing payments to health care providers.” The authorized penalties are “[r]epayment of the appropriate amount to thе . . . provider,” administrative fines by DFS of up to $5,000 for each improper disallowance or reduction of payments, and the award of the provider‘s costs, including a reasonable attorney‘s fee.
Subsection (8) establishes the process for the determination by DFS that a provider has engaged in a pattern or practice of overutilization. Subsection (8)(b) enumerates penalties that may bе imposed on a provider that “has engaged in a pattern or practice of overutilization or a violation of [the WCL] or rules adopted by [DFS]“: “[a]n order barring the provider from payment;” “[d]eauthorization of care under review;” “[d]enial of payment for care rendered in the future;” “[a]n administrative fine of $5,000;” and “[n]otification of and review by the appropriate licensing authority” of licensed practitioners as provided by the WCL.
III
According to the petitioner healthcare providers, the claim made by Davis under the FCCPA that the providers had improperly billed her—rather than the workers’ compensation carrier—in violation of the WCL fell within the scope of
The petitioners also assert that the use of the words “any” and “concerning” indicate that the exclusive jurisdiction provision is designed to sweep broadly. And they contend that there is “no third-party requirement inherent in the word ‘reimburse.‘” Accordingly, they argue that a direct paymеnt from a patient to a provider is a reimbursement so that the term “reimbursement” is essentially synonymous with “payment.”
Finally, the petitioners contend that the WCL‘s specific “self-contained system for dealing with covered workers’ compensation issues” is not altered by the subsequently enacted generally applicable provisions of the FCCPA. In making this argument, they invoke the specific-controls-the-general canon and the presumption against implied repeals.
Respondent Davis‘s core argument is that the reference in
Invoking the whole-text canon and the consistent-usage canon, Davis points to the use of “reimbursement” and “reimburse” in numerous provisions of the WCL to designate a payment made by a carrier to a provider for services rendered to an injured worker. Davis also points to the absence of any provision of the WCL in which “reimbursement” or “reimburse” refers to “a рayment sought by a provider from an employee, or a payment owed by an employee to a provider.”
Finally, based on this reading of the statute, Davis argues that there is no conflict between the WCL and the FCCPA. In the absence of such conflict, Davis contends there is no need to resort to the canons relied on by the petitioners to resolve the conflict they assert exists.5
IV
Answering the certified question requires us to determine the scope of the “exclusive jurisdiction” provision of
In interpreting a statute, our task is to give effect to the words that the legislature has employed in the statutory text. “The words of a governing text are of paramount concern, and what they convey, in their context, is what the text means.” Ham v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs., LLC, 308 So. 3d 942, 946 (Fla. 2020) (quoting Antonin Scalia & Bryаn A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 56 (2012)). As it was long ago observed: “The words of a statute are to be taken in their natural and ordinary signification and import; and if technical words are used, they are to be taken in a technical sense.” James Kent, Commentaries on American Law 432 (1826), quoted in Scalia & Garner, Reading Law at 69 n.1. “[T]he goal of interpretation is to arrive at a ‘fair reаding’ of the text by ‘determining the application of [the] text to given facts on the basis of how a reasonable reader, fully competent in the language, would have understood the text at the time it was issued.‘” Ham, 308 So. 3d at 947 (quoting Scalia & Garner, Reading Law at 33). Such a fair reading will always be mindful of the “fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolаtion, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used.” Deal v. United States, 508 U.S. 129, 132 (1993). “Context is a primary determinant of meaning.” Scalia & Garner, Reading Law at 167. Under the whole-text canon, proper interpretation requires consideration of “the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts.” Id.
Here, we must determine the meaning of the phrase “exclusive jurisdiction to decide any matters concerning reimbursement.”
Reimburse meаns “1. To repay (money spent); refund. 2. To pay back or compensate (another party) for money spent or losses incurred.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1522 (3d ed. 1992). This does not encompass a payment for services made by the recipient of services to the provider of those services. The ordinary meaning of the term thus is not consistent with the meaning urged by the petitioners. Contrary to the line of analysis advanced by the petitioners, “reimburse” is not a synonym for “pay.” In common usage, all reimbursements are payments but not every payment is a reimbursement. Similarly, the fact that a provision of the WCL—
The use of “reimburse” and “reimbursement” throughout the WCL is similarly inconsistent with the meaning advanced by the petitioners. And it is fully consistent with the meaning advanced by Davis. As is apparent from the foregoing review of the relevant provisions of the WCL, in the overwhelming number of instances when those words appear in the WCL, they refer to payment made by a carrier to a provider for services rendered to an injured worker. The definition of “reimbursement dispute” in
It would indeed be a very odd choice for the Legislature to use the term “reimbursement” in a sense in the exclusive jurisdiction provision different from the word‘s meaning throughout the WCL. If the Legislature had meant to say “рayment,” that term was readily available. Given the statutory context, it is unreasonable to conclude that the phrase “any matters concerning reimbursement” is equivalent to the phrase “any matters concerning payment.”
We also reject the petitioners’ claim that the dispute here is within the scope of “any matters concerning reimbursement” even if the dispute is not a dispute over reimbursеment. We have recognized that terms such as “concerning” frequently have a broad reach and should not be subjected to an unduly narrow interpretation. See Ham, 308 So. 3d at 948-50. But we have never suggested that terms such as “concerning” should be interpreted in the most expansive manner possible in every context. A “fair reading” of such terms to understand their proper reach will necessarily be sensitive to the full statutоry context.
It is obvious that a direct connection exists between the dispute in this case and the WCL. Davis‘s claim is based on an alleged violation of specific provisions of the statutory scheme that prohibit the billing of injured workers by providers. Absent those provisions of the WCL, Davis would have no claim. But that is a different issue than the question we must decide—whether the matter here is a “matter[] concerning reimbursеment.” The dispute here arises from alleged prohibited billing, which involves the relationship between the billing provider and the billed injured worker. This is distinct from reimbursement matters, which involve the relationship between the provider and the carrier. Given this context, we conclude that it is most reasonable to understand the “exclusive jurisdiction” provision as covering “any matters concerning” payments by a carrier to a provider but not applicable to the dissimilar matters that involve improper billing of a worker by a provider. In essence, the petitioners contend that the “exclusive jurisdiction” provision should be read to vest jurisdiction in DFS of all matters arising from a violation of the WCL concerning payments or charges for medical services, except matters subject to determination by a judge of compensation claims. The Legislature could have adopted such an expansive statutory provision, but it did not do so.
Given our interpretation of the scope of the “exclusive jurisdiction” provision, there is no need to address the arguments of the petitioners based on the presumption against implied repeals and the specific-controls-the-general canon.
V
We conclude that the matter at issue here under the FCCPA is not a “matter[] concerning reimbursement” subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of DFS. The jurisdiction of the circuit court is undisturbed by the provisions of the WCL. We therefore answer the certified question in the negative and approve the result reached by the Second District.
It is so ordered.
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, LABARGA, LAWSON, MUÑIZ, COURIEL, and GROSSHANS, JJ., concur.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED.
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeаl Certified Great Public Importance
Second District – Case Nos. 2D17-829 and 2D17-1790
(Hillsborough County)
James L. VanLandingham of Hogan Lovells US LLP, Miami, Florida, Catherine E. Stetson of Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, District of Columbia, and Steven F. Barley of Hogan Lovells US LLP, Baltimore, Maryland, for Petitioners Laboratory Corporation of America and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
Jane Kreusler-Walsh, Rebecca Mercier Vargas, and Stephanie L. Serafin оf Kreusler-Walsh, Vargas & Serafin, P.A., West Palm Beach, Florida, on behalf of Sheridan Radiology Services of Pinellas, Inc. and Sheridan Healthcare, Inc; David
Kristin A. Norse and Stuart C. Markman of Kynes, Markman & Felman, P.A., Tampa, Florida; Bryan S. Gowdy of Creed & Gowdy, P.A., Jacksonville,
Paul Michael Anderson of Anderson & Hart, P.A., Tallahassee, Florida, for Amici Curiae Workers’ Compensation Section of The Florida Bar and Florida Workers’ Advocates