HILLSBOROUGH CTY. HOSP. v. Tampa Heart Institute

472 So. 2d 748, 10 Fla. L. Weekly 1309
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMay 22, 1985
Docket84-772, 84-913 and 84-839
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 472 So. 2d 748 (HILLSBOROUGH CTY. HOSP. v. Tampa Heart Institute) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
HILLSBOROUGH CTY. HOSP. v. Tampa Heart Institute, 472 So. 2d 748, 10 Fla. L. Weekly 1309 (Fla. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

472 So.2d 748 (1985)

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY, d/b/a Tampa General Hospital, Appellant,
v.
TAMPA HEART INSTITUTE and Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, Appellees.
UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, Appellant,
v.
TAMPA HEART INSTITUTE, Tampa General Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital and Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, Appellees.

Nos. 84-772, 84-913 and 84-839.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

May 22, 1985.

*749 Julian Clarkson and John Radey of Holland & Knight, Tallahassee, for appellant Tampa Gen. Hosp.

Alan C. Sundberg and Cynthia S. Tunnicliff of Carlton, Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith & Cutler, P.A., Tallahassee, for appellant University Community Hosp.

Barry Richard of Roberts, Baggett, LaFace, Richard & Wiser, Tallahassee, and *750 Chris William Altenbernd of Fowler, White, Gillen, Boggs, Villareal & Banker, Tampa, for appellee Tampa Heart Institute.

M. Stephen Turner of Culpepper, Turner & Mannheimer, Tallahassee, for appellee Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

CAMPBELL, Judge.

Appellant, Hillsborough County Hospital Authority (Tampa General), in this administrative appeal seeks review of two orders entered by the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS). The first order (April 10, 1984) is a final order holding Tampa General in default and denying Tampa General the right to further participate as a party in the formal administrative proceedings under section 120.57, Florida Statutes (1983). The second order (April 23, 1984) is a final order dismissing the proceedings with prejudice. Appellant, University Community Hospital (UCH), also appeals HRS' April 10th order wherein UCH was denied its renewed motion to intervene. We reverse in part and affirm in part.

The salient facts of this case are as follows: On August 11, 1982, UCH applied for a certificate of need (CON) to provide cardiac catheterization and open heart surgery services to patients of Hillsborough County. HRS denied the application November 30, 1982, and requested the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) to assign a hearing officer for a formal hearing pursuant to section 120.57, Florida Statutes (1982). On November 12, 1982, in a separate batching cycle[1], Tampa Heart Institute (Tampa Heart) filed an application with HRS for a CON to build a cardiac specialty hospital with an open heart surgery and cardiac catheterization capacity in Tampa. After an initial denial on the staff level, HRS' secretary, David Pingree, receded from the recommended denial and granted Tampa Heart a CON for the project as proposed with the condition that the majority of beds be available to residents of Central and South America. HRS apparently justified its disposition by noting that its cardiac catheterization and open heart methodologies[2] measure only local need, while Tampa Heart proposes to serve primarily Latin American residents. Thus, HRS found that "the Tampa Heart proposal does not lend itself to analysis which uses formulas predicating serviceneed projections entirely on local population and use statistics."

Tampa General has extensive existing cardiac catheterization and open heart surgery capability and is located in the same service area as the proposed Tampa Heart facility. Apparently, concluding that the proposed new facility would bring about duplication of existing facilities which ultimately would affect health care, Tampa General applied for a formal administrative hearing pursuant to section 120.57 to contest the proposed grant for Tampa Heart. St. Joseph's Hospital (St. Joseph's), which is also located in Tampa, petitioned for such a hearing as well. HRS referred those petitions, which were consolidated, to a hearing officer assigned by DOAH.

Meanwhile, UCH prepared for hearing on its earlier filed application. UCH, in a later filed amended petition for leave to intervene in the Tampa Heart proceedings, alleged that it did not earlier seek to intervene in Tampa Heart's application because: (1) HRS' grant of a CON to Tampa Heart was a proposed, nonfinal agency action and could not be counted on as an "approved" facility for purposes of determining the need for UCH's proposal; (2) the UCH and *751 Tampa Heart proposals were different and incomparable because HRS used different standards to evaluate them; (3) UCH, by filing earlier, enjoyed a priority to have its application reviewed without regard to Tampa Heart's application in a later batching cycle; (4) HRS gave no notice that it would depart from its past rulings and treat the proposed grant of a CON as final for all purposes.

In October 1983, during final hearings on its application, UCH learned that HRS intended to consider Tampa Heart as an "approved" facility for purposes of determining the need for cardiac services at UCH. UCH claims it did not intervene in Tampa Heart's case at that time because of its view that case law established that Tampa Heart could not have an approved CON until entry of a final order at the conclusion of its administrative proceeding, which was not scheduled for some time.

On January 16, 1984, the final hearing on Tampa Heart's application began[3]. Early in the hearing, during an unrecorded bench conference, DOAH hearing officer, Chris Bentley, engaged in a discussion with all counsel concerning settlement possibilities. A recess in the final hearing[4] took place after which Bentley orally ordered all counsel to proceed in good faith to pursue a negotiated settlement and to instruct him if the proposed settlement concept was not acceptable. According to Bentley and the attorneys for all the parties except Tampa General, the proposed concept of settlement was that the proposed Tampa Heart facility would be consolidated with the existing Tampa General facility and that all the parties would agree to immediately dismiss the litigation while details of the settlement were worked out. Bentley's perception that Tampa General failed, in good faith, to comply with his oral order resulted in the ultimate default of Tampa General and a dismissal of the section 120.57 proceeding pursuant to the presumed authority of Florida Administrative Code rule 28-5.211.

The proposed settlement appeared in jeopardy on or about January 25, 1984, when, for the first time, Tampa General's counsel advised Tampa Heart's counsel that the dismissal concept was unacceptable, which resulted in a procedural hearing requested by Tampa Heart in Tallahassee on January 27, 1984. At this hearing, Tampa Heart's counsel (Mr. Baggett) orally moved to dismiss Tampa General as a party on the ground that Tampa General had exhibited "bad faith ... in its participation in attempted settlement negotiations ... and representations to the hearing officer allegedly causing a lengthy delay in the final hearing." The hearing officer directed that the motion to dismiss be reduced to writing and an evidentiary hearing on the motion was scheduled in Tampa for the following Monday, January 30, 1984.

UCH immediately sought to intervene in Tampa Heart's case when it learned of these events, believing that its interest finally had been affected in two ways. UCH first alleged that final agency action on Tampa Heart's application appeared to be imminent, strengthening HRS' assertion that Tampa Heart was an "approved" facility. *752 Secondly, UCH alleged that by denying UCH's earlier application for lack of need, but then granting St.

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Bluebook (online)
472 So. 2d 748, 10 Fla. L. Weekly 1309, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hillsborough-cty-hosp-v-tampa-heart-institute-fladistctapp-1985.