Opinion ID: 2330453
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the State Prison is Part of the Public Within WAS's Primary Response Area

Text: [¶ 12] WAS is required to respond to calls for emergency medical assistance within the primary response area for which it is licensed. 9 C.M.R. 16 163 003-2 § 2(4)(A). Any ground ambulance service offering response to emergency medical calls in the service's primary response area must be available twenty-four hours a day . . . and shall not deny treatment or transport resulting from an emergency call if treatment or transport is indicated. 9 C.M.R. 16 163 003-4 § 8(1) (2003). [¶ 13] The primary response area is [a]ny area to which the service is routinely made available when called by the public to respond to medical emergencies. 9 C.M.R. 16 163 003-2 § 2(4)(A) (emphasis added). There is no dispute that the State Prison is within WAS's primary response area, but WAS does dispute the Board's determination that inmates and, implicitly, staff and visitors at the prison are members of the public as used in the definition of primary response area. [¶ 14] Public is not defined in the EMS rules. In looking to extrinsic sources to assist in interpreting the word public, we conclude that the word, as used in the rule, is ambiguous. The dictionary consulted by the Board, and which was made part of the administrative record, defines public as [t]he community or the people as a whole. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY 1056-57 (New College ed. 1979). This inclusive definition of public might cause one to conclude that all persons at the prison are members of the public. We note, however, that courts have, for purposes of other statutes, found that inmates are not considered members of the public and that correctional facilities are not public facilities. [6] Accordingly, reasonable people can disagree about whether incarcerated inmates, who have little or no actual involvement in a community because of their confinement in a correctional institution, should be considered members of the public that comprise the community. [¶ 15] Because the word public in the Board's rule is ambiguous, we will defer to the Board's interpretation of its own rule unless the rule plainly compels an interpretation that would exclude inmates at the State Prison from WAS's primary response area. See Downeast Energy Corp., 2000 ME 151, ¶ 13, 756 A.2d at 951. The Board's construction of public to include inmates at the prison is consistent with the statute's purpose of creating a statewide EMS system. See 32 M.R.S. § 81-A (2006) (noting statute's purpose to promote and provide for a comprehensive and effective emergency medical services system to ensure optimum patient care and Legislature's intent to promote the public health, safety and welfare by providing for the creation of a statewide emergency medical services system with standards for all providers of emergency medical services). A construction of the rule that would exclude prisoners and other high-risk populations from public would frustrate the statute's purpose of creating a statewide, comprehensive EMS system because it would potentially exclude prisoners, staff, and visitors at every state and county correctional facility in Maine from the definition of public. The Board's rules do not compel a contrary result. [¶ 16] The Board's interpretation of public is reasonable, and the Board did not commit an error of law when it concluded that calls from the State Prison, whether concerning an inmate, visitor, or staff member, are calls from the public within WAS's primary response area.