Taylor v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo.
| Decision Date | 02 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | WD 83238 |
| Citation | 602 S.W.3d 851 |
| Parties | Daniel L. TAYLOR, Appellant, v. The CURATORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, Respondent. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Aaron W. Smith, Columbia, MO, Attorney for Appellant.
Jeffrey S. Russell, Darci F. Madden, and Jonathan B. Potts, St. Louis, MO, Attorneys for Respondent.
Before Division Two: Mark D. Pfeiffer, Presiding Judge, and Alok Ahuja and Gary D. Witt, Judges
This appeal presents a procedural scenario in which the second count in a lawsuit relating to one "claim" was dismissed by the Circuit Court of Boone County, Missouri ("trial court"). Because the trial court's ruling does not qualify as a "final judgment" pursuant to section 512.020(5),1 Wilson v. City of St. Louis , 600 S.W.3d 763 (Mo. banc 2020), we are required to dismiss the appeal.
The Curators of the University of Missouri ("Curators") is the governing body of the University of Missouri, which operates University Hospital ("Hospital") in Columbia, Missouri. In 2014, the Hospital provided medical care to Mr. Daniel L. Taylor ("Taylor") following a farming accident, which resulted in the amputation of Taylor's left hand. At the time the Hospital provided services to Taylor, he was uninsured. Taylor agreed to be personally responsible for the medical billing since he did not have any health insurance. When Taylor did not pay his medical bills, Curators asserted a hospital lien in the amount of $134,661.64.
In 2015, Taylor entered into a settlement agreement with his employer's farm liability insurer in the amount of $1,005,000. The liability insurer withheld $134,661.64 from the settlement amount to satisfy the hospital lien. In 2016, Curators filed suit against the liability insurer to foreclose the lien, resulting in the liability insurer paying the full amount of the hospital lien to Curators.
In 2018, Taylor filed suit against Curators, alleging that the Hospital represented on its "Financial Assistance" website that Hospital charges for uninsured patients were "automatically discounted" 60% and physician charges were "automatically discounted" 25%. He contended that because he was uninsured when he was admitted to the Hospital in 2014, the Hospital should have applied this "uninsured discount policy" to the amount of the medical billing. Taylor alleged that Curators’ receipt of $134,661.64 from the insurer was an "overpayment" of $75,082.53.
Subsequently, Taylor filed a Second Amended Petition containing two counts. In Count I, Taylor alleged that Curators "refused to honor the ‘Uninsured Patient Discount’ and refused to reduce the medical billing to [Taylor], thereby breaching the contractual relationship entered in by [Taylor] and [Curators]." He alleged that Curators’ suit against the liability insurer "for payment of its full hospital lien" was "in violation of the contractual agreement." He further alleged that "[a]s a result of the overpayment, [Curators] breached its contract with [Taylor] to accept discounted payment because of [Taylor's] uninsured status and [Taylor] is thereby damaged in the same amount as the overpayment and for attorney's fees."
In Count II, Taylor incorporated by reference the allegations in Count I and repeated allegations regarding the hospital lien relating to Curators’ effort to successfully obtain the full amount of the hospital lien in violation of its automatic deduction agreement with its uninsured patients. In this count, however, Taylor sought a different remedy for the Curators’ alleged misdeeds, alleging that the actions of Curators were a violation of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act ("MMPA") due to the Curators' "misrepresentation, unfair practices, and suppression in that the asserted lien was for the full amount of the medical billing and did not include the required automatic discount for an uninsured patient." Taylor sought all statutorily authorized damages for the alleged MMPA violation by Curators.
Curators filed a motion to dismiss Taylor's Second Amended Petition. Curators argued that Count I for breach of contract should be dismissed because Taylor failed to plead sufficient facts to show that he entered into a contract with Curators for a discount in his medical bills. Curators argued that Count II should be dismissed because Taylor failed to plead facts establishing that an exception to sovereign immunity applied that would subject Curators to liability under the MMPA. The trial court issued a judgment of dismissal as to Count II only and purported to certify its ruling as "final" and immediately appealable pursuant to Rule 74.01(b).3
Taylor appealed from the judgment of dismissal, asserting trial court error in its application of sovereign immunity and in its statutory interpretation of the MMPA. Curators filed a Motion to Dismiss Interlocutory Appeal, alleging that the trial court's partial dismissal did not qualify as a "final judgment" subject to interlocutory appeal. For the reasons hereinafter explained, we grant Curator's motion and dismiss Taylor's appeal for lack of a final judgment.
Recently, the Missouri Supreme Court in Wilson v. City of St. Louis , 600 S.W.3d 763 (Mo. banc 2020), clarified the analysis of what trial court rulings constitute "judgments" and, of those rulings, which are "final" for purposes of appeal.4 " ‘The right to appeal is purely statutory and, where a statute does not give a right to appeal, no right exists.’ " Id. at 767 (). The statute pertinent to this case is section 512.020(5), which provides, in relevant part:
(Emphasis added.) For purposes of section 512.020(5), a "final judgment" must satisfy two criteria: (1) "it must be a judgment (i.e. , it must fully resolve at least one claim in a lawsuit and establish all the rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to that claim)"; and (2) "it must be ‘final,’ either because it disposes of all claims (or the last claim) in a lawsuit, or because it has been certified for immediate appeal pursuant to Rule 74.01(b)." Wilson , 600 S.W.3d at 771. As to the second step in the "final judgment" analysis:
Wilson instructs us that the "final judgment" analysis is a conjunctive two-step analysis and not a disjunctive analysis. An appellant must have both a judgment and finality in order to appeal pursuant to section 512.020(5).5
Here, Taylor appeals from the trial court's purported judgment, dismissing with prejudice Count II (MMPA claim) of Taylor's Second Amended Petition against Curators and certifying the judgment under Rule 74.01(b) as a final judgment for purposes of appeal. Whether viewed as the failure to resolve a distinct "claim," or as the failure to resolve a distinct "judicial unit," the result is the same: we lack appellate jurisdiction over the circuit court's purported judgment.6
Before analyzing the second step in the "final judgment" formula (i.e. , the trial court's Rule 74.01(b) certification), we must analyze the first step—whether the trial court's dismissal ruling constitutes a "judgment." As our Missouri Supreme Court has observed:
There is persistent confusion surrounding the issues of what a judgment is, what form it takes, and when it is entered. The first, and most important, of these issues is definitional: a judgment is a legally enforceable judicial order that fully resolves at least one claim in a lawsuit and establishes all the rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to that claim .
State ex rel. Henderson v. Asel , 566 S.W.3d 596, 598 (Mo. banc 2019) (emphasis added). Taylor argues that the trial court's judgment dismissing Count II is final and appealable because, even though both counts arise from the...
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