Plantation General Hosp. Ltd. Partnership v. Johnson, 93-0059

• Citation: 621 So.2d 551
• Decision Date: 14 July 1993
• Docket Number: No. 93-0059,93-0059
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Week. D1598 PLANTATION GENERAL HOSPITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, Petitioner, v. Bruce A. JOHNSON, Martha Rich, Alfred Schempp and Judith Osit, for themselves and all others similarly situated, Respondents.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 551

621 So.2d 551

18 Fla. L. Week. D1598

PLANTATION GENERAL HOSPITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, Petitioner, v. Bruce A. JOHNSON, Martha Rich, Alfred Schempp and Judith

Osit, for themselves and all others similarly

situated, Respondents.

No. 93-0059.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fourth District.

July 14, 1993.

Kevin J. Murray and Deborah A. Sampieri, of Kenny, Nachwalter, Seymour, Arnold & Critchlow, P.A., Miami, for petitioner.

Herbert T. Schwartz, of Reinman, Harrell, Graham, Mitchell & Wattwood, P.A., Melbourne, and Richard G. Collins, of Richard G. Collins, P.A., Delray Beach, and Stephen A. Scott, of Stephen A. Scott, P.A., Gainesville, for respondents.

FARMER, Judge.

Four former patients of Plantation General Hospital have sued the hospital in a class action, claiming that the hospital routinely and as a matter of practice overcharged each of them for pharmaceuticals, medical supplies and laboratory services. The hospital bills for each of these patients were attached to the complaint, and the total amounts of each plaintiff's bill ranged from $1,500 to $13,000. They did not state the amount of the overcharge any one of them had suffered, but they did make a general allegation that some of the members of the putative class have claims greater than the jurisdictional minimum. ¹ Absent was any allegation that any of the class representatives had such a claim. In sum, they alleged that the aggregate of all claims of all class members exceeds the jurisdictional minimum.

The hospital moved to dismiss the action on the basis that the circuit court lacks jurisdiction over the action. The trial court denied the motion but granted a stay to allow the hospital to seek certiorari review of the order of denial. The hospital filed a petition for common law certiorari, which we elected to treat as seeking a writ of prohibition. We grant the writ.

To begin, we view the absence of the critical allegation--that any of the named class representatives who filed the suit has an overcharge claim greater than $10,000--as a tacit admission that none of them can claim that much. Hence, we construe the pleadings to mean that none of the class representatives has a claim within the jurisdictional minimum of the circuit court. The issue then becomes whether the plaintiffs can stack claims to meet the minimum. We do not believe they can.

The issue turns on whether their claims are legally considered joint, as opposed to separate and distinct. It is clear to us from the complaint that the only connection between the plaintiffs and the class members, and indeed the only thing they have in common, is that they were all overcharged. ² That is not the kind of joint claim of right, however, that allows stacking of individual claims for jurisdictional purposes.

Plaintiffs seek to torture State ex rel. City of West Palm Beach v. Chillingworth, 100 Fla. 489, 129 So. 816 (1930), and Burkhart v. Gowin, 86 Fla. 376, 98 So. 140 (1923), into a meaning that would allow these claims to be aggregated because they "are in some way related to each other." ³ In Burkhart, the defendant had given three separate promissory notes to the plaintiff, each of them for face amounts less than $500, then the jurisdictional limits of the circuit court. The trial judge dismissed plaintiff's suit in which he stacked the three claims to meet the limit. In affirming the dismissal, the Supreme Court said:

The organic limitations as to jurisdiction cannot be violated by splitting demands, or by aggregating demands that are in fact not joint or composite, and that are in no way related, but are wholly distinct and several in their character. * * * [S]everal claims, no one of which is in amount within the jurisdiction of the court, may be aggregated to confer jurisdiction, if the claims from their nature or character are joint or composite or are in some way related to each other, or arise out of the same transaction or circumstances or occurrence, and the sum of the claims makes the requisite jurisdictional amount. But where substantive claims are not in their nature or character joint or composite, and do not arise out of the same transaction, circumstances, or occurrence, and are not consequent upon a continuous course of dealing as evidenced by an open account, or a continuing contract, or other appropriate means, and the claims are in no way related, but are several, distinct, and wholly independent demands, whether ex contractu or ex delicto, they may not be aggregated to give jurisdiction, as this would violate the organic limitations as to jurisdictional amounts. [e.o.]

98 So. at 142. The same idea was repeated in Chillingworth.

The meaning of the words "in some way related to each other" is found in the examples used by the court to illustrate its point. The court stressed "a continuous course of dealing as evidenced by an open account, or a continuing contract * * *." While these illustrations may apply to dealings between the same parties, they plainly do not apply to separate and isolated transactions between one party and several other parties unrelated to one another and not jointly participating in the transactions with the others. We do not think that the exception in Burkhart and Chillingworth would apply to this class even if every one of its members had presented at the hospital at precisely the same moment, complaining of precisely the same ailment and demanding admission.

We therefore conclude that the circuit court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the class's claims. ⁴ That does not leave them without a remedy, of course. It simply means that they must bring their suit in the County Court. ⁵

PROHIBITION GRANTED; CAUSE TRANSFERRED TO COUNTY COURT.

HERSEY, J., concurs.

STONE, J., dissents with opinion.

STONE, Judge, dissenting.

In my judgment the circuit court has jurisdiction to consider a class action in which the monetary claims of the individual Plaintiffs do not separately reach the minimum amount necessary for circuit court jurisdiction. I would affirm the trial court order that denied Petitioner's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

Petitioner contends that the county court has exclusive jurisdiction of this class action because claims cannot be "aggregated" in order to meet the circuit court jurisdictional minimum. Respondents' right to bring a class action is not the issue in this petition. In considering the petition then, we must deem a class action to be appropriate here and focus solely on the issue of whether this class action must be brought in county rather than circuit court.

The Respondents assert that jurisdiction properly lies in the circuit court because class actions are traditionally cognizable in courts with equity jurisdiction and because they seek a unified judgment on behalf of the class which will total well in excess of the circuit court threshold, probably involving millions of dollars.

In State ex rel. City of West Palm Beach v. Chillingworth, 100 Fla. 489, 129 So. 816 (1930), the supreme court discussed the general circumstances under which claims may be aggregated to satisfy a trial court's jurisdictional minimum. There, the court permitted combining the claims of individual bondholders seeking payment of interest due on their bonds, recognizing that jurisdiction need not be limited by the amount of each separate demand. The court said:

This court is, however, committed to the rule that, if the demands from their nature or character are joint or composite, or are in some way related to each other or arise out of the same transaction, circumstances, or occurrence, they may be aggregated to confer jurisdiction.... but, where the claims are substantive and are not in their nature joint or composite and do not arise out of the same transaction, circumstances, or occurrences, and are not consequent upon a continuous course of dealing as evidenced by an open account or a continuing contract, and are in no way related, but represent distinct and wholly independent demands, they cannot be aggregated to confer jurisdiction.

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