University of Utah Hospital & Medical Center v. Twin Falls County

JOHNSON, Justice,

concurring and dissenting.

I concur in part I of the lead opinion, but I respectfully dissent from part II. Because of my dissent from part II, I view parts III and IV as dicta.

I would hold that St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Ctr. v. Canyon County, 120 Idaho 420, 816 P.2d 977 (1991), controls the decision on the issue addressed in part II. In St. Alphonsus, the Court concluded that a person does not become medically indigent until an application for workers’ compensation benefits is denied. Id. at 424, 816 P.2d at 981. This conclusion was necessary to the Court’s decision, because it controlled the Court’s ruling that the application was filed only five days late. While it is true that the Court then concluded that the untimely filing of the application did not prejudice the county, the Court would not have reached this conclusion if it had not first determined that the application was filed only five days late.

In this case, based on St. Alphonsus, I would rule that Morrison did not become medically indigent while the applications for SSI and medicaid benefits were pending. I also note that the district judge did not have St. Alphonsus available when he made his decision in this case, because St. Alphonsus was decided more than a year after the district judge’s ruling.

In my view, the holding in St. Alphonsus as applied to the facts in this case dictates that Morrison was not medically indigent while the SSI and medicaid applications were pending.