Opinion ID: 4306719
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reaching the merits of this appeal

Text: [¶22] The Court holds that maintenance of the stay is not possible because the Superior Court’s actions are interlocutory and many issues remain to be resolved before the Superior Court’s action on the plaintiffs’ complaint can be finalized. Court’s Opinion ¶ 11. I concur that there is much to be resolved—most fundamentally, the limits of judicial authority under the strict separation of powers clause, in article III of our Maine Constitution, to order submission of a plan to implement a program, without an approved appropriation, that all agree will cost tens of millions of dollars to implement. [¶23] In ordering that an implementation plan be submitted to the federal government, the Superior Court bypassed those nettlesome questions and issued a mandate that can subject state officials to a contempt sanction, see M.R. Civ. P. 66, and/or appointment of a receiver if no plan is submitted. Beyond the risk of contempt or displacement of executive authority by a court appointed receiver, mandated filing of an implementation plan may also have significant cost implications for the State. 14 [¶24] The plaintiffs in this matter are represented by skilled counsel. Pending our reaching the merits, we should assume that the plaintiffs have some chance of success on their claim that the courts can mandate filing of the Medicaid expansion plan. Once the plan is filed, the plaintiffs contend, the courts can and will mandate payments to those who qualify for benefits, even without any additional appropriation. [¶25] Specifically, the plaintiffs contend that once the implementation plan is submitted, qualified individuals, some of whom are already applying for benefits, may, by court order, begin receiving the expanded Medicaid payments. The plaintiffs assert that these additional costs will be paid from funds already appropriated to support those presently receiving Medicaid benefits. See Appellees’ Opposition to Motion to Stay Pending Appeal, at 13: [T]here are existing appropriations in the Medicaid accounts sufficient to fund Maine’s Medicaid program and provide benefits for all eligible populations described in . . . 22 M.R.S. § 3174-G(1)— including the expansion population newly added as Paragraph (H) to that subsection—through at least May of 2019. . . . Accordingly, even with no additional legislative appropriation, the Department is statutorily obligated to implement newly-enacted Paragraph (H), just as it is statutorily obligated to implement Paragraphs (A), (B), (C), (D), (E), (F), and (G). [¶26] Alternatively, the plaintiffs have contended that courts might mandate expenditures of unused funds in other state accounts, such as the so 15 called “Rainy Day Fund” or other funds, already appropriated, that have not yet been spent. The prospect of the courts reviewing state program accounts, identifying unspent funds, and ordering those funds transferred to and spent on the Medicaid expansion demonstrates considerable misunderstanding of our constitutional separation of powers. [¶27] Based on the plaintiffs’ arguments about how expanded benefits can be paid once a plan is filed, the plan filing mandate is a final judgment requiring no further trial court action before individuals who qualify can become eligible for expanded benefit payments. Even if the trial court’s mandate remains an interlocutory order, as the Court holds it is, an exception to the final judgment rule requires that we consider this appeal. [¶28] Under the “death knell” exception to the final judgment rule, an interlocutory appeal is permitted when “substantial rights of a party will be irreparably lost if review is delayed until final judgment.” Bruesewitz v. Grant, 2007 ME 13, ¶ 8, 912 A.2d 1255; see also U.S. Dep’t of Agric., Rural Housing Serv. v. Carter, 2002 ME 103, ¶ 12, 799 A.2d 1232 (stating that the death knell exception is available when the injury to the appellant’s claimed right, absent appeal, would be imminent, concrete, and irreparable). 16 [¶29] We have held that the death knell exception to the final judgment rule authorizes appeals from a “mandatory” injunction—an injunction, as at issue in this case, that requires the enjoined party to affirmatively act and change, rather than maintain, the status quo. Dep’t of Environmental Prot. v. Emerson, 563 A.2d 762, 765-67 (Me. 1989). Unless we are willing to overrule Emerson, we must address the merits of the Commissioner’s appeal from the Superior Court’s mandatory injunction.