Lakeview Behavioral Health Sys., LLC v. Uhs Peachford, LP

• Decision Date: 21 May 2013
• Docket Number: No. A13A0612.,A13A0612.
• Citation: 321 Ga.App. 820,743 S.E.2d 492
• Parties: LAKEVIEW BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYSTEM, LLC v. UHS PEACHFORD, LP, et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

321 Ga.App. 820

743 S.E.2d 492

LAKEVIEW BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYSTEM, LLC

v.UHS PEACHFORD, LP, et al.

No. A13A0612.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

May 21, 2013.

Balch & Bingham, Adrienne E. Marting, Michael J. Bowers, Joshua Michael Moore, Atlanta, for appellant.

Morris, Manning & Martin, Robert Charles Threlkeld, Dana S. Durrett, Atlanta, Holly A. Pierson, for appellees.

McMILLIAN, Judge.

Lakeview Behavioral Health System, LLC appeals the superior court's denial of its request for attorney fees pursuant to OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c). Lakeview sought to recover its fees after it successfully defended a challenge by UHS Peachford, LP d/b/a Peachford Behavioral Health System of Atlanta and UHS of Summitridge, LLC d/b/a Summitridge Hospital (collectively “ UHS”) to a certificate of need (“CON”) for a new acute care psychiatric and substance abuse hospital issued to it by the Georgia Department of Community Health (“DCH”). In this case of first impression, we reverse for the reasons set forth below.

UHS opposed Lakeview's CON from the beginning, filing an opposition to Lakeview's application for the CON in the initial administrative proceeding. After the DCH made its initial decision to grant the CON, UHS appealed to the Certificate of Need Appeal Panel (the “Appeal Panel”), which affirmed the initial DCH decision. The DCH subsequently issued its final order affirming the decision of the Appeal Panel, and UHS petitioned for judicial review in the Superior Court of Fulton County.

UHS contended in its petition that the DCH should have deferred to policy set by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (“DBHDD”) that focuses on outpatient treatment for public mental health patients. ¹ UHS argued that the DCH's grant of a CON to Lakeview to establish a new psychiatric hospital was impermissible because it was based, in part, on consideration of hospital bed space for public mental health patients. Thus, UHS asserted that the DCH's decision “fails to give deference or even to recognize the policy decision of the State agency charged with assuring the availability of mental health services to public sector patients,” and instead “contradicts [the DBHDD's] explicit policy and may undermine its underlying objectives.” UHS asserted that “a sharp, irreconcilable conflict” existed between the DBHDD's policy, and the DCH's final decision, which made “a flawed assessment of need based on a patent misread of the [DBHDD's] policies.” UHS contended that this conflict is contrary to the regulatory framework for public mental health services that the legislature has established. Aside from this “dispositive legal issue,” UHS asserted that the DCH decision was otherwise legally erroneous, not supported by substantial evidence and arbitrary and capricious.

The superior court's April 13, 2012 order found in favor of Lakeview and the DCH on these issues, and Lakeview subsequently filed a motion for attorney fees under OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c), which provides:

A party responding to an appeal to the superior court shall be entitled to reasonable attorney's fees and costs if such party is the prevailing party of such appeal as decided by final order; provided, however, the department shall not be required to pay attorney's fees or costs. This subsection shall not apply to the portion of attorney's fees accrued on behalf of a party responding to or bringing a challenge to the department's authority to enact a rule or regulation or the department's jurisdiction or another challenge that could not have been raised in the administrative proceeding.

OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c).² Under the language of the statute, therefore, a party who successfully defeats a challenge to a CON in superior court is entitled to an award of attorney fees unless the challenge fits into one of the three listed exceptions. See Review of Selected 2008 Georgia Legislation, 25 Ga. St. Univ. L. Rev. 219, 245 (2008) (reviewing health-related legislation).

The superior court denied Lakeview's motion for attorney fees, finding that UHS's challenge fit into the jurisdictional exception under OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c):

UHS's entire challenge has been that DCH exceeded its jurisdiction by acting in conflict with the policies of DBHDD, the agency charged with administering and providing mental health services to public sector patients in Georgia and by disregarding its statutory and regulatory obligations to require [ ] Lakeview to show actual numerical need for the proposed project before granting the CON.

The superior court concluded that “[b]ecause the heart of UHS's challenge focused on the DCH's disregard for its own authority, this Court finds that this case is specifically exempted from the award of attorney fees under OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c).”

As its sole enumeration on appeal, Lakeview asserts that the superior court erred in holding that UHS's petition for judicial review fit into the jurisdictional exception under OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c) because UHS's challenge to the CON was not a challenge to the DCH's jurisdiction within the meaning of the statute.

1. We must first consider the superior court's interpretation of OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c), to which we apply a de novo review. Kennedy Dev. Co. v. Camp, 290 Ga. 257, 258, 719 S.E.2d 442 (2011). In construing OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c), “we apply the fundamental rules of statutory construction that require us to construe the statute according to its terms, to give words their plain and ordinary meaning, and to avoid a construction that makes some language mere surplusage.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Currid v. DeKalb State Court Probation Dept., 285 Ga. 184, 187, 674 S.E.2d 894 (2009). Thus, “a statute should be read according to its natural and most obvious import of the language without resorting to subtle and forced constructions for the purpose of either limiting or extending its operation.” (Citation omitted.) Apollo Travel Svcs. v. Gwinnett County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 230 Ga.App. 790, 792(3), 498 S.E.2d 297 (1998).

Here, OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c) sets out three exceptions to the mandatory award of attorney fees, stating that no fees are recoverable for challenges to “[1] the [DCH's] authority to enact a rule or regulation or [2] the [DCH's] jurisdiction or [3] another challenge that could not have been raised in the administrative proceeding.” The trial court found that UHS's challenge fell under the second exception involving challenges to the DCH's jurisdiction, and UHS does not contend that the other two exceptions apply. Accordingly, we must first determine what the legislature meant by the “jurisdiction” of the DCH.

Lakeview argues that we should interpret the term “jurisdiction” in this context as comparable to a court's subject matter jurisdiction, which the Supreme Court of Georgia has defined as “jurisdiction of the class of cases to which that particular case belongs” and not “jurisdiction of the particular case then occupying the attention of the court.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hopkins v. Hopkins, 237 Ga. 845, 846(1), 229 S.E.2d 751 (1976). Lakeview asserts that because UHS never argued that the DCH lacked jurisdiction to rule upon Lakeview's application for the CON, it never raised a jurisdictional challenge. Lakeview also argues that the trial court's expansive definition of the term “jurisdiction” as applying to any challenge to DCH's authority would undermine the mandatory fee provision, allowing the exception to swallow the rule.

UHS counters that Lakeview's suggested definition would render the jurisdiction exception meaningless because it posits that no one would ever challenge the DCH's clear authority to issue CONs. UHS argues, instead, that it challenged the DCH's jurisdiction when it asserted that the DCH did not have the authority to grant the CON in this case because that decision “necessarily intruded upon and conflicted with the jurisdictional purview of DBHDD.” UHS, therefore, equates the DCH's authority with “jurisdiction” and asks us to interpret OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c) as precluding any award of attorney fees because UHS objected to the issuance of the CON on the ground that the DCH exceeded its authority by acting in conflict with the policy of the DBHDD.

In resolving this issue, we turn to the language of the statute. The legislature provided an exception for challenges to the DCH's “jurisdiction,” and we must presume that the legislature's use of that term “was a matter of considered choice.” ³ (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Deutsche Bank Nat. Trust Co. v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., 307 Ga.App. 307, 311(1)(b), 704 S.E.2d 823 (2010). Thus, we presume the legislature intended to provide an exception to the mandatory award of fees for challenges to the DCH's jurisdiction. See Citibank (South Dakota), N.A. v. Graham, 315 Ga.App. 120, 121–122(1), 726 S.E.2d 617 (2012) (in interpreting statutes, courts must presume that legislature “meant what it said and said what it meant”) (citation and punctuation omitted).

In contrast, the legislature's first exception to the mandatory fee award under OCGA § 31–6–44.1(c) precludes an attorney fee award when a party challenges “the [DCH's] authority to enact a rule or regulation.” (Emphasis supplied.) The legislature's word usage in these provisions suggests that the legislature intended the DCH's “jurisdiction” to mean something different than its authority. A review of OCGA § 31–6–44.1 as a whole supports this conclusion. Under OCGA § 31–6–44.1(a)(2), for example, a trial court may reverse or modify the final administrative decision on a CON if the conclusions contained in the final decision are “[in] excess of the statutory authority of the [DCH].” (Emphasis supplied.) ⁴ Therefore, if the legislature had intended to provide an exception to the mandatory attorney fee award for challenges asserting that the DCH acted “in excess of [its] statutory authority,” it clearly had the language to do so and, in fact, chose to create an exception...