St. Joseph Hosp. v. Concannon, Comm'r, Maine Dep't of Human Servs.

CourtSuperior Court of Maine
DecidedNovember 2, 2001
DocketKENap-01-18
StatusUnpublished

This text of St. Joseph Hosp. v. Concannon, Comm'r, Maine Dep't of Human Servs. (St. Joseph Hosp. v. Concannon, Comm'r, Maine Dep't of Human Servs.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Joseph Hosp. v. Concannon, Comm'r, Maine Dep't of Human Servs., (Me. Super. Ct. 2001).

Opinion

STATE OF MAINE SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL ACTION

KENNEBEC;, ss. DOCKET NO. AP-01-18 ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL,

Petitioner

Vv. DECISION AND ORDER

KEVIN CONCANNON, in his capacity as the Commissioner of the Maine Department

of Human Services,

Respondent

I. Introduction.

This is a matter brought pursuant to MLR. Civ. P. 80C in which the petitioner, St. Joseph Hospital (SJH), asks this court to order the respondent, Kevin Concannon, Commissioner of the Department of Human Services ("commissioner,” “the department," or "DHS", to issue a decision on the petitioner's amended application for a Certificate of Need ("CON") without further delay and without the public hearing requested by Eastern Maine Medical Center ("EMMC"), "a directly affected person” under 22 MR.S.A. § 307(2-B). As such, the petitioner relies on this court's authority to provide relief to “[alny person aggrieved by the failure or refusal of an agency to act.” 5 M.RS.A. § 11001(2). Such relief "shall include an order requiring the agency to make a decision within a time certain.” Id.

II. History. The factual and procedural history in this matter is not in serious dispute and can

be restated here in a shorthand way as follows: July 13, 1998. SJH filed a CON application with DHS to implement cardiac catheterization and angiography services.

November 13, 1998. DHS declared the application complete, commencing its formal review on December 1, 1998.

April 9, 1999. DHS’s CON unit issued a preliminary analysis recommending disapproval of SJH's CON application.

May 13, 1999. SJH filed an amended CON application with DHS, having asked for a suspension of the review process of the first application for this purpose.

July or August, 1999. DHS asked that SJH and other applicants for CON's for implementation of cardiac catheterization services to agree to a suspension of the review of their applications pending a study to evaluate the statewide need for such services. SJH assented to this request and eventually requested a suspension of its application. DHS agreed and suspended the application until December 31, 2000.

September 15, 2000. The DHS study was completed.

September 25, 2000. DHS advised SJH that it would now proceed to complete the CON process and, “All efforts will be made to provide Commissioner Concannon the opportunity to render a final decision prior to the end of this calendar year. If necessary the CON process will be extended in response to procedural requirements." Record ("R"), Exhibit 12.

November 9, 2000. DHS issued its preliminary analysis of SJH's amended

application and recommended its approval. EMMC, as a directly affected "person" was notified of this action. DHS also advised that the review cycle for this application was to end on November 30, 2000, unless a hearing was requested in which case the review period would be extended by 60 days.

On this same date DHS notified SJH and EMMC by letter that because no public hearing was previously requested, these parties had 10 days from receipt of the letter to either request that a public hearing be held or submit comments on the preliminary analysis.

- November 22, 2000. Representatives of EMMC met with CON unit staff of DHS to discuss the SJH application. SJH was not notified of this meeting nor did any of its representatives attend.

- November 27, 2000. EMMC delivered a letter and materials to the director of the CON unit, William Perfetto, commenting on the SJH application.

On the same date, EMMC requested a public hearing on the SJH CON application.!

- November 29, 2000. EMMC sent the CON unit director a copy of the recently issued Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Report. At about this time, SJH reviewed its file at DHS and was advised by Perfetto that he had returned EMMC's written material unopened because he had been advised that a public hearing was to be preferred to

a review of comments.

1 All parties agree that EMMC's request for a public hearing on November 27, 2000, extended the review cycle of SJH's CON application to January 29, 2001. Otherwise, the review cycle would have ended on November 30, 2000. December 11, 2000. William Perfetto, CON unit director, acknowledged EMMC's request for a hearing and scheduled an informational meeting for December 21, 2000. In the letter setting the meeting, Perfetto repeated that EMMC's written submissions had not been reviewed "per CON statutes." R., Exhibits 19, 20.

December 21, 2000. The cited informational meeting was conducted. January 23, 2001. SJH wrote to Perfetto requesting “that a specific and timely date be designated for public hearing.” R., Exhibit 24. The same letter objected to further delay of the review process and requested “a final decision on its application or specific dates for the public hearing . . ." Id.

January 29, 2001. Perfetto notified SJH and EMMC that a public hearing on SJH’s CON application had been scheduled for February 12, 2001, in Bangor.

February 12, 2001. The public hearing was postponed because there was a lack of a quorum. SJH and EMMC were present and prepared to proceed. February 14, 2001. SJH wrote the commissioner and demanded “that a decision be issued forthwith on its application,” and that a hearing not be rescheduled. R., Exhibit 31.

March 19, 2001. SJH filed the petition which is now pending before the _ court.

April 3, 2001. At the request of SJH, this court stayed a public hearing scheduled for Apri! 9, 2001, on the CON application of SJH. Neither DHS

nor EMMC objected. Ili. Discussion.

A. EMMC's Waiver of Right to Hearing.

Petitioner's second argument? in support of its request for an order directing the commissioner to issue an immediate decision without a hearing on the application for a CON is that EMMC waived any right to a public hearing by submitting written comments to the department.

All parties appear to agree that if a directly affected party so requests, "a public hearing shall be held during the course of a review by the [CON] Advisory Committee

.." 22 M.RS.A. § 307(2-B), but, if no hearing is to be held, an affected or interested person may submit comments within a prescribed time period. 22 M.R.S.A. § 307(2- B)(F). They also agree that this provides a choice to such a party so that if it requests a hearing, it cannot submit comments and vice versa. This statutory construction is not only reasonable, because it is the interpretation applied by the department, it is also entitled to great deference as DHS is the agency which administers the provisions of this statute. Wood v. Superintendent of Insurance, 638 A.2d 67, 70 (Me. 1994); 22 M.RS.A. § 307.

The petitioner argues, however, that because EMMC submitted comments along with its request for a hearing, and those comments appear in the official agency record, it cannot be said that such information was not reviewed. While this may be characterized as a factual dispute which the petitioner could have raised at an evidentiary hearing if timely requested, M.R. Civ. P. 80C(e), the petitioner's claim

instead is that once submitted, the comments had to be reviewed by the commissioner

2 The court will not be following the construct of the arguments in this case as submilted by the parties, but will endeavor to address cach of them.

a in making his decision. That being so, the petitioner contends, EMMC was not entitled to a hearing as the commissioner had its comments and therefore its choice as to the manner in which it wished to provide information to that official on SJH's application.

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