La Crosse Lutheran Hospital v. La Crosse County
This text of 395 N.W.2d 612 (La Crosse Lutheran Hospital v. La Crosse County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
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La Crosse County appeals from a judgment in favor of La Crosse Lutheran Hospital for $4,950.44 for hospital and medical care furnished to Enrique Pazo-More. The issue is whether the county is liable to a hospital under sec. 53.38, Stats., for care given to an indigent person taken by city police from the place of injury directly to the hospital. We conclude that the county is not liable. We therefore reverse the judgment and direct the circuit court to dismiss the complaint.
Section 53.38, Stats., provides:
If a prisoner needs medical or hospital care or is intoxicated or incapacitated by alcohol the sheriff or other keeper of the jail shall provide appropriate care or treatment and may transfer him to a hospital or to an approved treatment facility under s. 51.45(2)(b) and (c), making provision for the security of the prisoner. The costs of medical and hospital care outside of the jail shall (if the prisoner is unable to pay for it) in the case of persons held under the state criminal law or for contempt of court, be borne by the county and in the case of persons held under municipal ordinances by the municipality. The governmental unit paying such costs of medical or hos[337]*337pital care may collect the value of the same from him or his estate as provided for in s. 49.08.
The facts are stipulated. In July 1984 La Crosse city police arrested Pazo-More in La Crosse county. He had attempted to stab another person and was shot while the officers tried to subdue him. The city police transported him to the La Crosse Lutheran Hospital. While at the hospital, he was charged with first-degree murder. He was immediately booked into the La Crosse County Jail when released from the hospital. The $4,950.44 hospital bill is reasonable and he cannot pay it.
The hospital moved for summary judgment. The trial court concluded that to read sec. 53.38, Stats., to preclude the county’s liability on grounds that the offender was not in jail before he was taken to the hospital would cause an absurd result. The court therefore granted judgment for the hospital.
The application of a statute to a particular set of facts is a question of law. Bucyrus-Erie Co v. ILHR Department, 90 Wis.2d 408, 417, 280 N.W.2d 142, 146-47 (1979). We decide questions of law without deference to the trial court’s opinion. Ball v. District No. 4, Area Board, 117 Wis.2d 529, 537, 345 N.W.2d 389, 394 (1984).
If the statutory language is plain, we must apply it accordingly. In the Matter of Athans, 107 Wis.2d 331, 335, 320 N.W.2d 30, 32 (Ct. App. 1982).
Pazo-More was a prisoner in the sense that he was arrested. See sec. 46.011(2), Stats., defining a prisoner as “any person who is either arrested, incarcerated, imprisoned or otherwise detained in excess of 12 hours by any law enforcement agency of this state-” Sec[338]*338tion 53.38, Stats., however, does not refer to prisoners generally but to prisoners who are transferred by the sheriff or other keeper of the jail to a hospital.
The statutory language is plain. Section 53.38, Stats., applies only to prisoners who receive medical treatment and hospital care outside the jail after being transferred from a jail. A person who has not been jailed is not a prisoner within the meaning of sec. 53.38.1
The hospital argues that because the purpose of sec. 53.38, Stats., is to ensure that persons detained by enforcement officials receive medical care when they need it, our application of the statute leads to an absurd result. The hospital misreads the statute. It does not refer to persons detained by law enforcement officials. It refers to prisoners transferred by the sheriff or other keeper of the jail to the hospital or treatment facility.
We cannot rewrite sec. 53.38, Stats., to meet the hospital’s desired construction of it. If a statute fails to cover a particular situation, and the omission should be cured, the remedy lies with the legislature, not the courts. State v. Richards, 123 Wis.2d 1, 12-13, 365 N.W.2d 7, 12 (1985).
By the Court. — Judgment reversed and cause remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint.
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack
395 N.W.2d 612, 133 Wis. 2d 335, 1986 Wisc. App. LEXIS 3880, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/la-crosse-lutheran-hospital-v-la-crosse-county-wisctapp-1986.