Case Name: 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: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1993-07-14
Citations: 621 So. 2d 551
Docket Number: No. 93-0059
Parties: 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.
Judges: HERSEY, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 621
Pages: 551–554

Head Matter:
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. Sampi-eri, 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.

Opinion:
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. 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. 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." 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 plaintiffs 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. [Sjeveral 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. That does not leave them without a remedy, of course. It simply means that they must bring their suit in the County Court.
PROHIBITION GRANTED; CAUSE TRANSFERRED TO COUNTY COURT.
HERSEY, J., concurs.
STONE, J., dissents with opinion.
. The suit was commenced after July 1, 1990 but before July 1, 1992. Under section 34.-01(l)(c)3, Florida Statutes (1991), the county court has exclusive jurisdiction of causes of action accruing during that period in which the amount in controversy does not exceed the sum of $10,000.
. For purposes of the motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds, we accept plaintiffs' well-pled allegation that the defendant did overcharge them.
. Plaintiffs argue that the circumstances satisfy all of the prerequisites for class action treatment and thus, ipso facto, also satisfy any legal requirements for stacking their claims to meet the jurisdictional minimum. But subject matter jurisdiction and the requirements for class action treatment are entirely separate concepts. The mere fact that the latter is satisfied does not assure the former. Moreover, there is nothing in section 34.01(4), Florida Statutes (1991), that purports to obliterate the distinction between subject matter jurisdiction and class action treatment on equitable grounds. The mere fact that the class action device originated in equity hardly yields the conclusion that all class actions are inherently within a court's equitable jurisdiction. Even if it did, the real meaning of section 34.01(4) is that the county court has exclusive jurisdiction over the equitable aspects of any claim not exceeding $10,000 accruing during the applicable time period.
. Plaintiffs also argue that their declaratory judgment claim gives the circuit court subject matter jurisdiction over the entire action. We reject out of hand the argument that all declaratory judgment claims are, in and of themselves, within the equitable jurisdiction of the circuit court. Section 86.011, Florida Statutes (1991), expressly provides that the "circuit and county courts have jurisdiction within their respective jurisdictional amounts to declare rights This provision simply means that, where the subject of the declaratory judgment action involves an amount in controversy that does not exceed the sum of $15,000, the action must be brought in the county court.
. We stress that this is not a matter of personal preference or judicial philosophy, but only a construction of the jurisdictional provisions set down in the constitution and statutes. If the legislature wants the circuit courts to take on class actions of the kind involved here, it can always change the law to allow them to do so.