Pinillos v. Cedars of Lebanon Hospital Corp.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 59021,59021
• Citation: 403 So.2d 365
• Parties: Rene PINILLOS, as Personal Representative for the Estate of Margarita Pinillos, Deceased, surviving spouse; Vanessa Margarita Pinillos, surviving child and the Estate of Margarita Pinillos, Appellants/Cross-appellees, v. CEDARS OF LEBANON HOSPITAL CORPORATION and the Florida Patients Compensation Fund, Appellees/Cross-appellants.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 365

403 So.2d 365

Rene PINILLOS, as Personal Representative for the Estate of Margarita Pinillos, Deceased, surviving spouse; Vanessa Margarita Pinillos, surviving child and the Estate of Margarita Pinillos, Appellants/Cross-appellees, v. CEDARS OF LEBANON HOSPITAL CORPORATION and the Florida Patients Compensation Fund, Appellees/Cross-appellants.

No. 59021.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 18, 1981.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 29, 1981.

Edward A. Perse of Horton, Perse & Ginsberg, and Ratiner & Glinn, Miami, for appellants/cross-appellees.

Mel Lamelas of Lanza, Sevier & Womack, Coral Gables, for appellees/cross-appellants.

ALDERMAN, Justice.

The final judgment in this medical malpractice wrongful death action is before us on direct appeal because the trial court held section 768.50, Florida Statutes (1979) (Collateral Sources of Indemnity), to be unconstitutional. ¹ This section requires that any judgment in a medical malpractice action be reduced by any amounts which the plaintiff has received from collateral sources.

Plaintiffs, the surviving spouse, the child, and the estate of the deceased, appeal the judgment on the basis that the trial court erred in overriding and recomputing the jury's reduction of their damage awards to present value. Defendants, Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and the Florida Patients Compensation Fund, cross appeal the trial court's ruling that section 768.50 is unconstitutional. Finding both claims to be meritorious, we reverse the trial court's judgment on these issues. The Hospital also contends the trial court committed reversible error by denying its motion for a directed verdict. We find no merit in this claim and affirm the trial court's judgment on this issue.

Margarita Pinillos was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for the purpose of delivering a child after a full-term pregnancy. Her attending physician performed a nonemergency cesarean section which culminated in Vanessa Pinillos' birth but which also resulted in Margarita's death. Charging the Hospital and several named physicians with medical malpractice, Rene Pinillos, Margarita's surviving spouse, brought this wrongful death action on behalf of himself, his daughter, and his wife's estate. The jury returned verdicts for the plaintiffs against the Hospital and the Florida Patients Compensation Fund. ² The jury verdict stated the gross amount of future damages for each plaintiff and separately stated the amount of future damages reduced to present money value. The reduction was calculated pursuant to an erroneous formula given by the judge in his instructions to the jury. ³

At a post-trial hearing, the court took evidence on what benefits were received by plaintiffs from collateral sources, but then, on motion of the plaintiffs, it held section 768.50 unconstitutional and refused to set off any collateral source benefits against the amounts of damages assessed by the jury.

The primary question is whether section 768.50 violates the equal protection clauses of the Florida and federal constitutions. The plaintiffs argue that the distinction drawn between medical practitioners and other members of the public is arbitrary and unreasonable. Since no suspect class or fundamental right expressly or impliedly protected by the constitution is implicated by section 768.50, we find that the rational basis test rather than the strict scrutiny test should be employed in evaluating this statute against plaintiffs' equal protection challenge. The rational basis test requires that a statute bear a reasonable relationship to a legitimate state interest, and the burden is on the challenger to prove that a statute does not rest on any reasonable basis or that it is arbitrary. In re Estate of Greenberg, 390 So.2d 40 (Fla.1980).

The legislature, in the preamble to the Medical Malpractice Reform Act, of which section 768.50 is a part, announced in detail the legitimate state interests involved in its enactment of this provision. The legislature determined that there was a professional liability insurance crisis in Florida. It found that professional liability insurance premiums were rising at a dramatic and exorbitant rate, that insurance companies were withdrawing from this type of insurance market making such insurance unavailable in the private sector, that the costs of medical specialists were extremely high, and that a certain amount of premium costs is passed on to the consuming public through higher costs for health care services. This insurance crisis, the legislature concluded, threatened the public health in Florida in that physicians were becoming increasingly wary of high-risk procedures and, accordingly, were downgrading their specialties to obtain relief from oppressive insurance rates and in that the number of available physicians in Florida was being diminished. The legislature expressed the concern that the tort law liability insurance system for medical malpractice would eventually break down and that the costs would continue to rise above acceptable levels.

The plaintiffs have failed to show that there is no rational basis for the distinction drawn by this statute for health care providers of professional services. We hold that the classification created by section 768.50 bears a reasonable relationship to the legitimate state interest of protecting the public health by ensuring the availability of adequate medical care for the citizens of this state. ⁴ Carter v. Sparkman, 335 So.2d 802 (Fla.1976).

We have also considered plaintiffs' challenges to this statute on the bases that it violates their right to access to the courts guaranteed by article I, section 21, Florida Constitution, and that it violates article II, section 3, Florida Constitution, and article V, section 2(a), in that it invades this Court's rulemaking power. We find these claims to be without merit. Accordingly, we hold that section 768.50 is constitutional, and we reverse the trial judge's ruling on this point.

We next address the issue raised by plaintiffs as to whether the trial court erred in basing its final judgment on expert testimony presented by defendants at a post-trial hearing rather than rendering judgment in accordance with the jury verdict or granting a new trial on the issue of damages only. At the post-trial hearing, the Hospital contended that the jury had employed an incorrect formula to arrive at the present money value of future damages stated in its verdict form. It was permitted to call an actuary as an expert witness who testified as to the proper reduction to present money value of the gross amounts found by the jury. The court accepted this testimony and entered judgment reflecting the figures testified to by the actuary rather than the erroneous present money value reductions made by the jury.

Although the parties could have stipulated that the judge do the reductions after the jury returned its verdict, the record does not reveal any such stipulation here. The plaintiffs expressly requested that the jury make the appropriate reductions and only agreed to the judge's checking of the jury's arithmetic. They did not agree to the use of a formula to which the jury was given no access and did not agree to the judge's reduction of the gross verdict amounts contrary to section 768.48. Since the defendants failed to produce any evidence at trial on the method of reducing the future damages to present value, since it is conceded that the judge erroneously instructed the jury on the method of reduction, and since the jury, following the judge's erroneous instruction, incorrectly calculated its reductions, we hold that the trial court erred in making the reductions predicated upon a formula established posttrial. Rather, upon motion of counsel, it should have granted a new trial on damages.

Lastly, the Hospital argues that the trial court erred in denying its motion for a directed verdict on its vicarious liability for the alleged negligence of Dr. Haroldo Diaz. It contends that the evidence established that Dr. Diaz was neither an employee nor an agent of the Hospital. Plaintiffs respond that the jury could reasonably infer from the facts of this case that Dr. Diaz was the Hospital's agent.

The evidence did not clearly establish whether Dr. Diaz was or was not an employee or agent of the Hospital's. There was evidence to support either view. That being the case, the issue was properly submitted to the jury to make its factual determination. We, therefore, affirm the trial court's denial of this motion.

Accordingly, the order of the trial court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and this case is remanded for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

OVERTON, ENGLAND and McDONALD, JJ., concur.

SUNDBERG, C. J., dissents with an opinion in which ADKINS and BOYD, JJ., concur.

SUNDBERG, Chief Justice, dissenting.

If saying so could make it so, unquestioning acceptance of the legislative findings that a medical malpractice crisis did and does exist in Florida would be understandable, if not warranted. But this Court, in making its determination of constitutionality, is not bound by whatever preamble the legislature decides to attach to justify a statute:

Legislative findings and declarations of policy are presumed to be correct but are not binding upon the courts under all conditions.... "The general rule is that findings of fact made by the legislature are presumptively correct. However, it is well recognized that the findings of fact made by the legislature must actually be findings of fact. They are not entitled to the presumption of correctness if they are nothing more than recitations amounting only to conclusions and they are always subject to judicial inquiry." (Emphasis added.)

Moore v. Thompson, 126 So.2d 543, 549 (Fla.1960) (quoting from Seagram-Distillers Corp. v. Ben Greene, Inc., 54 So.2d 235, 236 (Fla.1951)). This Court's inquiry must be to determine whether such a crisis is extant, because even...