Bureau of Community Medical Facilities Planning of Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Services v. Samson, EE-10
| Decision Date | 04 February 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. EE-10,EE-10 |
| Citation | 341 So.2d 1071 |
| Parties | BUREAU OF COMMUNITY MEDICAL FACILITIES PLANNING OF DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES, State of Florida and Community Hospital of New Port Richey, Inc., Petitioners, v. Bernard L. SAMSON and Walter P. Loebenberg, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Respondents Samson and Loebenberg applied to petitioner Bureau of Community Medical Facilities Planning for a certificate of need, pursuant to Sections 381.493 through .497, Florida Statutes (1975), for construction of a hospital facility in Pasco County. Following preliminary hearings, a favorable recommendation was made by Florida West Coast Health Planning Council, the appropriate 'health systems agency.' Sections 381.493(3)(h), .494(5). The Bureau then denied certification and, under procedures unique to the Florida Health Facilities Planning Act, a hearing officer of the Division of Administrative Hearings was designated to review the matter according to Section 391.494(6)(e) and the Administrative Procedure Act, Section 120.57, Florida Statutes (1975). The hearing officer ordered that the certificate be granted. The Bureau, as the State agency having responsibility to issue certificates of need under Section 381.494(6)(a), has neither finally granted the certificate, in compliance with the hearing officer's order, nor finally denied it, as the Bureau plainly wishes to do. The Bureau, joined by petitioner Community Hospital of New Port Richey, Inc., which opposed respondents' application, has petitioned for judicial review of the hearing officer's order. Section 120.68, Florida Statutes (1975).
Respondents urge judicial review is unavailable because no final agency action has yet been taken as required by Florida's Administrative Procedure Act. Section 120.68(1), Florida Statutes (1975). No contention is made that the hearing officer's order constituted such unusual 'preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action' as requires an interlocutory judicial remedy.
Petitioners Bureau and Community Hospital do not deny that final agency action on a petition for need certification would ordinarily occur when the agency grants or denies the certificate. That would seem to be the plain meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, Chapter 120. The complicating factor in this case is that the Congress has conditioned federal funding of such hospital construction on the existence of an agreement between federal administrators and State governors which, among other things, must
'. . . establish and maintain procedures pursuant to which a person proposing any such capital expenditure may appeal a recommendation by the designated agency (in Florida, the Bureau) and will be granted an opportunity for a fair hearing . . ..' 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-1(b)(3).
Federal administrators, exercising rulemaking power, have directed that after an adverse finding or recommendation by the State agency, the applicant shall be entitled to a hearing 'in accordance with the applicable requirements of State law' before a person other than the agency, and that '(a)ny decision of a hearing officer . . . shall, to the extent that it reverses or revises the findings or recommendations of the designated planning agency, supersede the findings and recommendations of the designated planning agency . . ..' 42 C.F.R. § 100.106(c)(2), (4) (1976). The federal regulations thus place the Bureau in the position of being unable to finally deny Samson and Loebenberg a certificate of need in the face of the hearing officer's order without offending federal standards incorporated in the governor's agreement for hospital funding in Florida. And the Bureau is unable to grant respondents certification, in accordance with the hearing officer's decision, without abandoning its earnestly held and contrary position, which it wishes to preserve...
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Department of Professional Regulation v. LeBaron, AQ-214
...this precise issue. 3 However, in Bureau of Community Medical Facilities Planning of Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services v. Samson, 341 So.2d 1071 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977), this court held that the hearing officer designated to conduct a proceeding on an application for certificate ......
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Rowell v. State, Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement, 96-04666
...to direct review in a district court. See § 120.68, Fla. Stat.; Fla. R.App. P. 9.030(b)(1)(C); Bureau of Community Medical Facilities v. Samson, 341 So.2d 1071, 1073 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977). The same is true of a quasi-judicial agency decision. See Von Stephens, 338 So.2d at 893. Relief from an......
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School Bd. of Collier County v. Steele, CC-487
...Board cannot here seek judicial review of final agency action which is, in legal effect, its own. Cf. Bureau of Community Med. Fac. Planning v. Samson, 341 So.2d 1071 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977). Were we to recognize the order of the Board of Education as final agency action, subject to review on p......
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Samson v. Bureau of Community Medical Facilities Planning of Dept. of Health & Rehabilitative Services, EE-459
...expenditure."The Bureau subsequently repealed this rule, effective January 1, 1977. Rule 10I-1.03.8 Bureau of Community Med. Fac., Etc. v. Samson, 341 So.2d 1071 (Fla.App.1977), wherein this Court held that the hearing officer designated in the matter was not an "agency" for purposes of ren......