Laboratory Corporation of America v. Patty Davis, etc. & Sheridan Radiology Services of Pinellas, Inc. v. Patty Davis, etc.

Supreme Court of Florida
____________
No. SC19-1923
____________
LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA, et al.,
Petitioners,
vs.
PATTY DAVIS, etc., et al.,
Respondents.
____________
No. SC19-1936
____________
SHERIDAN RADIOLOGY SERVICES OF PINELLAS, INC., et al.,
Petitioners,
vs.
PATTY DAVIS, etc., et al.,
Respondents.
May 26, 2022
PER CURIAM.
In this case we consider the interaction between the statutory
remedy for prohibited consumer debt collection practices provided
by the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA) 1 and the
provision of the Workers’ Compensation Law (WCL)2 vesting the
Department of Financial Services (DFS) with exclusive jurisdiction
to decide matters concerning workers’ compensation
reimbursement. Before the Court for review is the decision of the
Second District Court of Appeal in Davis v. Sheridan Healthcare,
Inc., 281 So. 3d 1259 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019), in which the court held
the WCL exclusive jurisdiction provision to be inapplicable as a bar
to suit by an injured worker against a health care provider for
prohibited debt collection practices. Id. at 1261. The Second
District certified the following question to be of great public
importance:
DOES SECTION 440.13(11)(c) OF THE WORKERS’
COMPENSATION LAW PRECLUDE CIRCUIT COURT
JURISDICTION OVER CLAIMS UNDER SECTION
559.77(1) OF THE FLORIDA CONSUMER COLLECTION
PRACTICES ACT?
Id. at 1267. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.
1. §§ 559.55-559.785, Fla. Stat. (2014).
2. Ch. 440, Fla. Stat. (2014).
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We answer the certified question in the negative and approve the
result reached by the Second District.
I
Patty Davis was injured during the course of her employment.
Subsequently, Davis utilized workers’ compensation benefits to
receive medical care for her work-related injuries. Davis received
medical care from two providers: Sheridan Radiology Services of
Pinellas, Inc., a subsidiary of Sheridan Healthcare, Inc. (Sheridan);
and Laboratory Corporation of America and Laboratory Corporation
of America Holdings (Labcorp). Thereafter, Sheridan and Labcorp
repeatedly billed Davis directly for the medical care that she
received.
Davis then filed two separate actions against Sheridan and
Labcorp under section 559.77(1), Florida Statutes (2014), of the
FCCPA. Davis argued that as an injured employee under the
WCL—chapter 440, Florida Statutes (2014)—she was not to be
billed for seeking medical care for her work-related injuries.
Instead, according to Davis’s claim, her employer’s workers’
compensation carrier, Commercial Risk Management, Inc. (CRM),
was responsible for reimbursing Sheridan and Labcorp. In turn,
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Davis maintained that Sheridan and Labcorp’s attempts to collect
the debt from her constituted an attempt to collect an illegitimate
debt, violating section 559.72, Florida Statutes (2014), of the
FCCPA.
In response, Sheridan and Labcorp asserted that the trial
courts lacked subject matter jurisdiction for the alleged FCCPA
violations. Under Sheridan and Labcorp’s reasoning, section
440.13(11)(c) of the WCL unequivocally states that DFS “has
exclusive jurisdiction to decide any matters concerning
reimbursement.” Consequently, Sheridan and Labcorp claimed,
because their billing Davis was merely a “matter[] concerning
reimbursement,” exclusive jurisdiction over the matter was vested
in DFS.
The trial courts agreed with Sheridan and Labcorp and
dismissed Davis’s FCCPA claims. Davis appealed. In its
consolidated opinion, the Second District held that “the WCL does
not preclude Davis’s claims filed against her workers’ compensation
medical providers under section 559.77(1) of the FCCPA,” reversed
both trial court dismissals, and certified to this Court the question
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of great public importance set forth above. Davis, 281 So. 3d at
1261, 1267.
II
Section 559.72 of the FCCPA prohibits various debt collection
practices. Subsection (9) provides that “no person shall . . . [c]laim,
attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person knows
that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some other
legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.”
Section 559.77 contains provisions authorizing and governing civil
remedies for violations of the FCCPA. Subsection (1) provides that
“[a] debtor may bring a civil action against a person violating the
provisions of s. 559.72.” Subsection (2) provides for the award of
“actual damages and for additional statutory damages . . . not
exceeding $1,000.” Punitive damages and other equitable relief are
also authorized.
Section 440.13 of the WCL establishes the framework for the
provision of medical services to injured workers and for the
reimbursement of medical providers by carriers and employers for
those services. Subsection (3)(g) provides that “[t]he employee is not
liable for payment for medical treatment or services provided
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pursuant to this section except as otherwise provided in this
section.” In addition, subsection (13)(a) provides that “provider[s]
may not collect or receive a fee from an injured employee within this
state” unless otherwise provided and that “providers have recourse
against the employer or carrier for payment for services rendered in
accordance with [the WCL].” 3
Subsection (11)(a) of section 440.13 grants DFS the power to
“investigate health care providers to determine whether providers
are complying with [the WCL] and with rules adopted by [DFS],”
including “whether the providers are engaging in overutilization,
3. Under subsection (5)(a) of section 440.13, an employee
“requesting and selecting [an] independent medical examination
shall be responsible for all expenses associated with said
examination, including, but not limited to, medically necessary
diagnostic testing performed and physician or medical care provider
fees for the evaluation,” but “[i]f the employee prevails in a medical
dispute as determined in an order by a judge of compensation
claims or if benefits are paid or treatment provided after the
employee has obtained an independent medical examination based
upon the examiner’s findings, the costs of such examination shall
be paid by the employer or carrier.” Subsection (5)(d) provides that
an employee who without justification and proper notice fails to
appear for an independent medical examination properly scheduled
by a carrier or employer “shall reimburse the employer or carrier 50
percent of the physician’s cancellation or no-show fee.”
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[and] whether providers are engaging in improper billing practices.” 4
“If [DFS] finds that a health care provider has improperly billed,
overutilized, or failed to comply with [DFS] rules or the
requirements of [the WCL]” DFS “may determine that the health
care provider may not receive payment from the carrier or may
impose penalties as set forth [elsewhere in the WCL].” If a provider
has received improper payments “from a carrier,” the provider
“must return those payments to the carrier.” DFS is authorized to
impose “a penalty not to exceed $500” for overpayments that are
not timely refunded.
Subsection (11)(c)—which is the focus of the issue presented
by this case—provides that DFS “has exclusive jurisdiction to decide
any matters concerning reimbursement, to resolve any overutilization
dispute under subsection (7), and to decide any question
concerning overutilization under subsection (8).” (Emphasis
4. Undergirding the authority of DFS regarding providers is
the provision of subsection (3)(f) of section 440.13 that “[b]y
accepting payment under [the WCL] for treatment rendered to an
injured employee, a health care provider consents to the jurisdiction
of [DFS] as set forth in subsection (11)” and to the submission of
records relevant to “a reimbursement dispute, audit, or review.”
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added.) The first mentioned subsection provides for remedies
against carriers that improperly deny reimbursement, and the
second subsection provides penalties against providers that engage
in overutilization.
Subsection (7) establishes the administrative process for
resolving “utilization and reimbursement disputes” between carriers
and providers. Subsection (1)(q) defines “[r]eimbursement dispute”
as “any disagreement between a health care provider or health care
facility and carrier concerning payment for medical treatment.”
Subsection (7)(d) provides that when DFS “finds an improper
disallowance or improper adjustment of payment by an insurer, the
insurer shall reimburse the health care provider, facility, insurer, or
employer.” Provision is made in subsection (7)(f) for the imposition
of various penalties on “[a]ny carrier that engages in a pattern or
practice of arbitrarily or unreasonably disallowing or reducing
payments to health care providers.” The authorized penalties are
“[r]epayment of the appropriate amount to the . . . provider,”
administrative fines by DFS of up to $5,000 for each improper
disallowance or reduction of payments, and the award of the
provider’s costs, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.
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Subsection (8) establishes the process for the determination by
DFS that a provider has engaged in a pattern or practice of
overutilization. Subsection (8)(b) enumerates penalties that may be
imposed on a provider that “has engaged in a pattern or practice of
overutilization or a violation of [the WCL] or rules adopted by
[DFS]”: “[a]n order barring the provider from payment;”
“[d]eauthorization of care under review;” “[d]enial of payment for
care rendered in the future;” “[a]n administrative fine of $5,000;”
and “[n]otification of and review by the appropriate licensing
authority” of licensed practitioners as provided by the WCL.
III
According to the petitioner healthcare providers, the claim
made by Davis under the FCCPA that the providers had improperly
billed her—rather than the workers’ compensation carrier—in
violation of the WCL fell within the scope of section 440.13(11)(c)’s
provision vesting “exclusive jurisdiction” in DFS “to decide any
matters concerning reimbursement.” The petitioners contend that
the only basis for Davis’s claim under the FCCPA was the WCL’s
“particularized reimbursement requirements,” i.e., the general
prohibition on charging injured workers.
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The petitioners also assert that the use of the words “any” and
“concerning” indicate that the exclusive jurisdiction provision is
designed to sweep broadly. And they contend that there is “no
third-party requirement inherent in the word ‘reimburse.’ ”
Accordingly, they argue that a direct payment from a patient to a
provider is a reimbursement so that the term “reimbursement” is
essentially synonymous with “payment.”
Finally, the petitioners contend that the WCL’s specific “self-
contained system for dealing with covered workers’ compensation
issues” is not altered by the subsequently enacted generally
applicable provisions of the FCCPA. In making this argument, they
invoke the specific-controls-the-general canon and the presumption
against implied repeals.
Respondent Davis’s core argument is that the reference in
section 440.13(11)(c) to “any matters concerning reimbursement”
cannot be understood to include the matter at issue here, which
arises from claims for payment by providers directly from a patient.
Davis relies on the ordinary meaning of “reimbursement,” which she
asserts does not encompass a payment made directly from a patient
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to a provider, as well as the manner in which the term is used in
the WCL.
Invoking the whole-text canon and the consistent-usage
canon, Davis points to the use of “reimbursement” and “reimburse”
in numerous provisions of the WCL to designate a payment made
by a carrier to a provider for services rendered to an injured worker.
Davis also points to the absence of any provision of the WCL in
which “reimbursement” or “reimburse” refers to “a payment sought
by a provider from an employee, or a payment owed by an employee
to a provider.”
Finally, based on this reading of the statute, Davis argues that
there is no conflict between the WCL and the FCCPA. In the
absence of such conflict, Davis contends there is no need to resort
to the canons relied on by the petitioners to resolve the conflict they
assert exists. 5
5. We decline to address other arguments that have been
presented.
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IV
Answering the certified question requires us to determine the
scope of the “exclusive jurisdiction” provision of section
440.13(11)(c). The standard of review for such issues of statutory
interpretation is de novo. Lopez v. Hall, 233 So. 3d 451, 453 (Fla.
2018).
In interpreting a statute, our task is to give effect to the words
that the legislature has employed in the statutory text. “The words
of a governing text are of paramount concern, and what they
convey, in their context, is what the text means.” Ham v. Portfolio
Recovery Assocs., LLC, 308 So. 3d 942, 946 (Fla. 2020) (quoting
Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation
of Legal Texts 56 (2012)). As it was long ago observed: “The words
of a statute are to be taken in their natural and ordinary
signification and import; and if technical words are used, they are
to be taken in a technical sense.” James Kent, Commentaries on
American Law 432 (1826), quoted in Scalia & Garner, Reading Law
at 69 n.1. “[T]he goal of interpretation is to arrive at a ‘fair reading’
of the text by ‘determining the application of [the] text to given facts
on the basis of how a reasonable reader, fully competent in the
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language, would have understood the text at the time it was
issued.’ ” Ham, 308 So. 3d at 947 (quoting Scalia & Garner,
Reading Law at 33). Such a fair reading will always be mindful of
the “fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed,
of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined
in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is
used.” Deal v. United States, 508 U.S. 129, 132 (1993). “Context is
a primary determinant of meaning.” Scalia & Garner, Reading Law
at 167. Under the whole-text canon, proper interpretation requires
consideration of “the entire text, in view of its structure and of the
physical and logical relation of its many parts.” Id.Here, we must determine the meaning of the phrase “exclusive
jurisdiction to decide any matters concerning reimbursement.”
§ 440.13(11)(c), Fla. Stat. We consider first the ordinary meaning of
the verb “reimburse,” from which the noun “reimbursement” is
derived. We then look to the way “reimbursement” and “reimburse”
are used in the WCL. We then determine how the scope of the
“exclusive jurisdiction” provision is affected by the phrase “any
matters concerning” as the final step in resolving the dispositive
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question whether the matter at issue in this case is within the
scope of “any matters concerning reimbursement.”
Reimburse means “1. To repay (money spent); refund. 2. To
pay back or compensate (another party) for money spent or losses
incurred.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language 1522 (3d ed. 1992). This does not encompass a payment
for services made by the recipient of services to the provider of
those services. The ordinary meaning of the term thus is not
consistent with the meaning urged by the petitioners. Contrary to
the line of analysis advanced by the petitioners, “reimburse” is not a
synonym for “pay.” In common usage, all reimbursements are
payments but not every payment is a reimbursement. Similarly,
the fact that a provision of the WCL—section 440.13(13)(a), for
example—refers to reimbursement using the term “payment” does
not establish that reimbursement and payment are synonymous
terms in the WCL. And there is no basis for concluding that any
relevant “technical sense” of the term “reimburse” or
“reimbursement” supports the petitioners’ position on this point.
The use of “reimburse” and “reimbursement” throughout the
WCL is similarly inconsistent with the meaning advanced by the
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petitioners. And it is fully consistent with the meaning advanced by
Davis. As is apparent from the foregoing review of the relevant
provisions of the WCL, in the overwhelming number of instances
when those words appear in the WCL, they refer to payment made
by a carrier to a provider for services rendered to an injured worker.
The definition of “reimbursement dispute” in section 440.13(1)(q) as
“any disagreement between a health care provider or health care
facility and carrier concerning payment for medical treatment” sets
the stage for the usage of the terms “reimbursement” and
“reimburse” throughout the section. (Emphasis added.) And not
once do the terms “reimbursement” or “reimburse” refer to a
payment made to a provider by a worker for services rendered to the
worker. The position advanced by the petitioners thus runs up
against the “presumption of consistent usage:” “A word or phrase is
presumed to bear the same meaning throughout a text . . . .” Scalia
& Garner, Reading Law at 170. No basis is apparent for defeating
this presumption here. It is thus entirely implausible that the term
“reimbursement” in the “exclusive jurisdiction” provision should be
given a meaning different not only from its ordinary meaning but
also from the meaning it has elsewhere in the WCL.
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It would indeed be a very odd choice for the Legislature to use
the term “reimbursement” in a sense in the exclusive jurisdiction
provision different from the word’s meaning throughout the WCL. If
the Legislature had meant to say “payment,” that term was readily
available. Given the statutory context, it is unreasonable to
conclude that the phrase “any matters concerning reimbursement”
is equivalent to the phrase “any matters concerning payment.”
We also reject the petitioners’ claim that the dispute here is
within the scope of “any matters concerning reimbursement” even if
the dispute is not a dispute over reimbursement. We have
recognized that terms such as “concerning” frequently have a broad
reach and should not be subjected to an unduly narrow
interpretation. See Ham, 308 So. 3d at 948-50. But we have never
suggested that terms such as “concerning” should be interpreted in
the most expansive manner possible in every context. A “fair
reading” of such terms to understand their proper reach will
necessarily be sensitive to the full statutory context.
It is obvious that a direct connection exists between the
dispute in this case and the WCL. Davis’s claim is based on an
alleged violation of specific provisions of the statutory scheme that
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prohibit the billing of injured workers by providers. Absent those
provisions of the WCL, Davis would have no claim. But that is a
different issue than the question we must decide—whether the
matter here is a “matter[] concerning reimbursement.” The dispute
here arises from alleged prohibited billing, which involves the
relationship between the billing provider and the billed injured
worker. This is distinct from reimbursement matters, which involve
the relationship between the provider and the carrier. Given this
context, we conclude that it is most reasonable to understand the
“exclusive jurisdiction” provision as covering “any matters
concerning” payments by a carrier to a provider but not applicable
to the dissimilar matters that involve improper billing of a worker by
a provider. In essence, the petitioners contend that the “exclusive
jurisdiction” provision should be read to vest jurisdiction in DFS of
all matters arising from a violation of the WCL concerning payments
or charges for medical services, except matters subject to
determination by a judge of compensation claims. The Legislature
could have adopted such an expansive statutory provision, but it
did not do so.
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Given our interpretation of the scope of the “exclusive
jurisdiction” provision, there is no need to address the arguments of
the petitioners based on the presumption against implied repeals
and the specific-controls-the-general canon.
V
We conclude that the matter at issue here under the FCCPA is
not a “matter[] concerning reimbursement” subject to the exclusive
jurisdiction of DFS. The jurisdiction of the circuit court is
undisturbed by the provisions of the WCL. We therefore answer the
certified question in the negative and approve the result reached by
the Second District.
It is so ordered.
CANADY, C.J., and POLSTON, LABARGA, LAWSON, MUÑIZ,
COURIEL, and GROSSHANS, JJ., concur.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED.
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal
Certified Great Public Importance
Second District – Case Nos. 2D17-829 and 2D17-1790
(Hillsborough County)
James L. VanLandingham of Hogan Lovells US LLP, Miami, Florida,
Catherine E. Stetson of Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, District
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of Columbia, and Steven F. Barley of Hogan Lovells US LLP,
Baltimore, Maryland,
for Petitioners Laboratory Corporation of America and
Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
Jane Kreusler-Walsh, Rebecca Mercier Vargas, and Stephanie L.
Serafin of Kreusler-Walsh, Vargas & Serafin, P.A., West Palm
Beach, Florida, on behalf of Sheridan Radiology Services of Pinellas,
Inc. and Sheridan Healthcare, Inc; David S. Johnson and Scott W.
Anderson of Johnson Daboll Anderson, PLLC, Tampa, Florida, on
behalf of Sheridan Radiology Services of Pinellas, Inc; and Susan N.
Eisenberg and Jennifer T. Williams of Cozen O’Connor, Miami,
Florida, on behalf of Sheridan Healthcare, Inc,
for Petitioners Sheridan Radiology Services of Pinellas, Inc.
and Sheridan Healthcare, Inc.
Kristin A. Norse and Stuart C. Markman of Kynes, Markman &
Felman, P.A., Tampa, Florida; Bryan S. Gowdy of Creed & Gowdy,
P.A., Jacksonville, Florida; and Christa L. Collins of Collins Law PL,
Saint Petersburg, Florida,
for Respondents
Paul Michael Anderson of Anderson & Hart, P.A., Tallahassee,
Florida,
for Amici Curiae Workers’ Compensation Section of The
Florida Bar and Florida Workers’ Advocates
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