Williams v. Ergle

698 So. 2d 1294, 1997 WL 522865
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedAugust 22, 1997
Docket96-2739
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 698 So. 2d 1294 (Williams v. Ergle) 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
Williams v. Ergle, 698 So. 2d 1294, 1997 WL 522865 (Fla. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

698 So.2d 1294 (1997)

Curtis WILLIAMS and Quintin Holt, Sr., Appellants,
v.
Ken ERGLE, Sheriff and Hugh Kelly, Mayor, Appellees.

No. 96-2739.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

August 22, 1997.

Curtis Williams and Quintin Holt, Sr., Ocala, pro se.

Loren E. Levy, The Levy Law Firm, Tallahassee, and Carol A. Falvey of Green, Kaster & Falvey, P.A., Ocala, for Appellees.

GRIFFIN, Chief Judge.

Pro se appellants Curtis Williams and Quintin Holt appeal the circuit court's denial of their petition for writ of prohibition against the Sheriff of Marion County and the Mayor of Ocala. At the time they filed their petition, they were non-sentenced, pre-trial detainees incarcerated in the Marion County Jail. Appellants were being charged by appellees for medical and dental treatment they received and one dollar per day for meal *1295 costs. Their inmate bank accounts, into which monies had been deposited by friends and family members for the purchase of personal items, were being debited to meet these charges. Appellants claimed that no statute authorized these charges and that their right, under Article I, Section 19 of the Florida Constitution, to be free from costs prior to conviction was being violated. The lower court denied the petition. We affirm.[1]

Although pre-trial detainees are generally entitled under the constitution to reasonable and adequate nourishment and medical care, see Hamm v. DeKalb County, 774 F.2d 1567, 1573 (11th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1096, 106 S.Ct. 1492, 89 L.Ed.2d 894 (1986), it does not follow that prison officials or the taxpayers are required to pay for them. In City of Revere v. Massachusetts General Hosp., 463 U.S. 239, 244-45, 103 S.Ct. 2979, 2983, 77 L.Ed.2d 605 (1983), the United States Supreme Court stated:

[A]s long as the governmental entity ensures that the medical care needed is in fact provided, the Constitution does not dictate how the cost of that care should be allocated as between the entity and the provider of the care. That is a matter of state law.
* * * * * *
In short, the injured detainee's constitutional right is to receive the needed medical treatment; how the city of Revere obtains such treatment is not a federal constitutional question.

In a footnote, the Court added, "Nothing we say here affects any right a hospital or governmental entity may have to recover from a detainee the cost of the medical services provided to him." 463 U.S. at 245, n. 7, 103 S.Ct. at 2984, n. 7. Indeed, a Florida court has since held that prisons are not required to pay for a non-indigent inmate's health care. See Metropolitan Dade County v. P.L. Dodge Foundations, Inc., 509 So.2d 1170, 1173-74 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987); see also Op. Att'y Gen. Fla. 59-158 (1959) (opining that cities are required to furnish and pay for medical care for indigent prisoners, but "[p]risoners who are able to provide necessary medical care for themselves from their private resources should do so if the need for such care does not flow from any negligent act on the part of the city which would subject the city to a tort action...."). This view is consistent with the notion that the provision of services to those who occupy America's prisons should not come solely at the expense of taxpayers when the occupants themselves possess resources to cover such costs. See S.P. Conboy, Note, Prison Reimbursement Statutes: The Trend Toward Requiring Inmates to Pay Their Own Way, 44 Drake L.Rev. 325 (1996); Wesley P. Shields, Comment, Prisoner Health Care: Is It Proper to Charge Inmates for Health Services?, 32 Hous. L.Rev. 271 (1995); see generally George L. Blum, Annotation, Validity, Construction, and Application of State Statute Requiring Inmate to Reimburse Government for Expense of Incarceration, 13 A.L.R. 5th 872 (1993).

It does appear that the challenged assessments have been authorized by the legislature. Section 951.032, Florida Statutes (1995), allows county and municipal detention facilities to recoup certain medical expenses from prisoners. The term "prisoner" is not defined in the statute, nor is there a definition applicable to the whole of chapter 951. Section 951.23, however, which provides a series of administrative requirements for county and municipal detention facilities, separately defines both "county prisoner" and "municipal prisoner." Under that statute, a "county prisoner" is defined as:

a person who is detained in a county detention facility by reason of being charged with or convicted of either [a] felony or misdemeanor.

§ 951.23(1)(c), Fla. Stat. (1995) (emphasis added). Similarly, a "municipal prisoner" is:

a person who is detained in a municipal detention facility by reason of being *1296 charged with or convicted of violation of [a] municipal law or ordinance.

§ 951.23(1)(e), Fla. Stat. (1995) (emphasis added). Thus, under section 951.23, pre-trial detainees in county or municipal detention facilities are considered "prisoners." Elsewhere in chapter 951, the legislature makes distinct reference simply to "prisoners" or prisoners "under sentence." Section 951.05 allows county boards to require "all county prisoners under sentence" to labor upon the public roads. § 951.05, Fla. Stat. (1995). See also §§ 951.01, .12, (Fla.Stat.). By comparison, section 951.06, Florida Statutes (1995), simply empowers chief correctional officers to enforce discipline among "prisoners," which could hardly be said to refer only to prisoners serving sentences.

Finally, it is a fundamental tenet of statutory construction that statutory language should be given its plain and ordinary meaning. WFTV, Inc. v. Wilken, 675 So.2d 674, 677 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996). When necessary, this may be ascertained by reference to a dictionary. Id. The plain meaning of the word "prisoner" is "a person held in custody, captivity, or a condition of forcible restraint, esp[ecially] while on trial or serving a prison sentence." The American Heritage Dictionary 986 (2d coll. ed.1991) (emphasis added). Thus, it appears that section 951.032's reference to prisoners includes both pre-trial detainees and those serving sentences following convictions.

The legislation authorizing assessment for the subsistence costs reimbursement was a product of the 1996 legislative session. § 951.033, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1996).[2] As with section 951.032, the term "prisoner" is not defined in this statute but the same reasoning suggests that pretrial detainees are included. Additionally, subsection (4) of section 951.033 provides that an order directing payment of a prisoner's daily subsistence costs may survive against the estate of the sentenced prisoner. It cannot be assumed that the word "sentenced" is superfluous. General Elec. v. DeCubas, 504 So.2d 1276, 1278 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986); Terrinoni v. Westward Ho!, 418 So.2d 1143, 1146 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982). The word "sentenced" appears nowhere else in the statute, which suggests that in this provision the legislature consciously distinguished between prisoners who are serving sentences for criminal convictions and those who are not.

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Bluebook (online)
698 So. 2d 1294, 1997 WL 522865, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-ergle-fladistctapp-1997.