Hospital plaintiffs file writ with supreme court

March 01, 2010

The plaintiffs in the hospital lawsuit today asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to review a lower court’s decision concerning the hospital project’s management contract.

The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled early last month that the health care facilities contract Valencia County signed with a local nonprofit complied with state law. The plaintiffs had argued that the contract was illegal under the New Mexico Hospital Funding Act because the nonprofit — Valencia Health Commons — isn’t a hospital located in New Mexico, which the plaintiffs say is a requirement of the act.

The decision by the appellate court upheld an earlier district court ruling.

James L. Sanchez, the attorney for the plaintiffs, filed a writ of certiorari with the supreme court requesting the court review the case, reverse the court of appeals decision and remand it to the district court to invalidate the contract through injunctive relief.

In the filing, Sanchez argues that the court of appeals committed error when it provided a flexible interpretation of the Hospital Funding Act instead of a strict interpretation.

Strict interpretation, or what Sanchez calls “strict construction,” is key to the plaintiffs’ argument that the contract, which would give approximately $21-million in mill levy funds to Valencia Health Commons, could only be signed with a hospital in New Mexico.

“The plain meaning mean of the Act clearly requires an actual existing physical facility as Plaintiffs claim,” Sanchez writes.

Under its flexible interpretation, the court of appeals said the contract could be signed with Valencia Health Commons, even though it has no physical hospital, because it would have a physical hospital at the time the mill levy money is turned over to the health commons for operation and maintenance.

Sanchez writes that the court of appeals decision essentially legislates from the bench, adding words and powers to the Hospital Funding Act that the legislature didn’t intend.

“The combined effect of adding the words ‘pledge’ and ‘escrow’ to the Act, and by not requiring a contracting hospital to have ‘physical facilities’ is to amend the Hospital Funding Act and the power to issue a mill levy under the Act, so that mill levy funds will be available to pay for the construction of a hospital without voter approval,” Sanchez writes.

The supreme court could take approximately four months to decide if it’ll review the case.

Related document:

(Valencia! redacted one phone number and five addresses.)

Posted in: Hospital