Opinion ID: 2539009
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether It Was Error To Grant Summary Judgment to Voss and Enter Final Judgment of Dismissal

Text: Although the denial of Mat-Su's attempt to intervene in Burkhead's suit was appealed and argued first, we discuss the issues raised by the appeal in Mat-Su's direct action against Voss first because they dispose of both appeals.
Mat-Su argues that Judge Kristiansen erred in concluding that Mat-Su's exclusive remedy was the statutory lien procedure set out in AS 34.35.475(b). Mat-Su contends that it does not need statutory authorization to obtain common law contract-based assignment rights, but that the relevant statutory framework nevertheless permits it to proceed directly against Voss. According to Mat-Su, the relevant statutory framework includes a federal bankruptcy statute, [9] the Alaska Exemptions Act, [10] the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), [11] Alaska's treatment of insurance companies' subrogation rights, [12] state Medicaid law, [13] and federal Medicare law. [14] It argues that those bodies of law provide instructive, analogous examples in which creditors, providers of governmental services, or possessors of subrogation rights may pursue claims directly against third-party tortfeasors. Voss responds that the hospital lien enforcement procedure set out in AS 34.35.450.482 provides Mat-Su's exclusive remedy against Voss and that we therefore do not need to consider the questionably relevant extra-territorial legal authority discussed at length by Mat-Su. In the appeal arising out of Burkhead's personal injury action against Voss, Burkhead likewise argues that the statutory lien procedure provides Mat-Su's exclusive remedy against Voss. Burkhead argues that permitting Mat-Su to proceed directly against Voss would eviscerate the careful tripartite balance our legislature established between the patient/plaintiff, health care provider, and tortfeasor/insurer. Per AS 34.35.450(a), a hospital that furnishes service to a person with a traumatic injury has a lien upon any sum awarded to the injured person ... to the extent of the amount due the hospital. [15] The hospital may foreclose or sue to enforce its lien within one year of filing [16] and may also, in certain very limited situations, bring an action against a third party responsible for the damages. [17] If the responsible third party has notice of the lien, pays the injured party, and does not pay the hospital, the hospital has a cause of action against the third party for 180 days from the date of payment. [18] As Mat-Su observes, any exclusivity of this statutory lien remedy is not self-evident from either the text or the legislative history of AS 34.35.475. Mat-Su also correctly observes that the mere existence of statutory lien rights does not automatically extinguish common law rights or require explicit statutory permission to acquire additional contract rights. [19] But it is significant that the legislature chose to create a limited lien remedy rather than a statutory assignment or subrogation remedy like those it explicitly adopted in other contexts. In workers' compensation cases, for example, an employee's acceptance of an award of compensation acts as a conditional assignment to the employer of all rights to recover damages from liable third parties. [20] And AS 47.05.070(b) grants the Department of Health and Social Services subrogation rights against insurance payments and other recoveries by recipients of Medicaid benefits. [21] The legislature could have adopted a similar remedy for health care providers but opted instead for the lien scheme. Moreover, although we have never expressly held that assignments of personal injury claims are invalid as a matter of public policy, we have long recognized a general rule of non-assignability of claims for personal injury under Alaska law. [22] We have identified limited exceptions to this general rulethe validity of the reassignment of a wrongful death claim to the estate of the decedent, for example [23] but we have never recognized an exception for health care providers. The absence of exclusive remedy language in the lien statute is therefore unsurprising. The legislature, in fashioning the lien remedy in AS 34.35.475, had no reason to think health care providers in Alaska had any ability to obtain or enforce personal injury assignments from their patients. Because it had no reason to think any such remedies were available or would become available to health care providers in Alaska, the legislature had no reason to expressly state that the statutory lien remedy was in lieu of contract-based assignment remedies or other possible imaginary remedies. But because the legislature did not explicitly or implicitly foreclose a health care provider's direct claims against a tortfeasor based on its patient's assignment of tort claims, it is necessary to consider whether such assignments are valid in Alaska. [24] As discussed above, we have long recognized a general rule of non-assignability of claims for personal injury under Alaska law. [25] The majority of jurisdictions around the country have similarly declined to recognize the validity of assignments of tort claims for personal injury, [26] although some states do allow personal injury claims to be assigned. [27] Mat-Su argues that Alaska law does not prohibit the assignment of personal injury claims, and notes that we have never held such an assignment invalid as against public policy. Mat-Su also argues that any general rule prohibiting the assignment of personal injury claims would not apply to it because it is required to provide emergency medical treatment to patients under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. [28] Mat-Su suggests that, as such a provider, it is not a stranger to its patients' personal injury lawsuits for the purposes of champerty, and it has a greater need than other health care providers to obtain assignments of personal injury claims. Voss argues that such assignments are contrary to law and unenforceable as a matter of public policy. She also argues that permitting health care providers to obtain assignments of personal injury claims from their patients would subject defendants to multiple lawsuits, in which there would be a substantial risk of inconsistent results, and would potentially prevent settlements with tort victims. Burkhead suggests that permitting such assignments might also harm patients' interests in pursuing personal injury claims. Nothing Mat-Su argues persuades us that we should reexamine what we said about such assignments and recognize their validity. We think the assignment of personal injury claims is socially problematic given the potential for overreaching when injured assignees bargain away some or all of their rights under the equivalent of at least economic, if not physical or mental, duress. [29] Any benefits potentially derived by expanding the remedies available to mandatory providers of emergency services would seem to be outweighed by the risk that the routine collection of such assignments from emergency room patients would increase the potential for duress and decrease the likelihood of a fully informed assignment. The New Mexico Court of Appeals recently confronted the public policy implications of the assignment of personal injury claims to health care providers in Quality Chiropractic, PC v. Farmers Insurance Co. of Arizona. [30] Because New Mexico law provided for the subrogation rights of insurers, the court had to examine the similarities and differences between health care providers and insurers. The court observed that, because insurers have a pre-existing duty to pay, they bear the risk that the insured will be unable to obtain compensation from the tortfeasor. [31] As the court noted, if there is no recovery from the third-party tortfeasor after benefits have been paid, the insurer has no additional recourse to seek reimbursement for the benefits it paid to the insured. [32] In contrast, a health care provider is entitled to payment in full from the patient. [33] The court also noted that allowing injured tort victims to assign the proceeds of their personal injury claims could add unnecessary complications to the settlement of relatively straightforward cases. [34] The court thus [thought] it best to leave to the legislature the decision as to whether to recognize health care assignments. [35] Given that our legislature has provided an effective, albeit limited, lien remedy, the social ramifications of allowing such assignments, and health care providers' continued ability to collect from their own patients as creditors, we think it should be for the legislature to decide whether to recognize assignments of patients' personal injury claims. Judge Kristiansen did not err in holding that Mat-Su's exclusive remedy against Voss was the statutory lien procedure set out in AS 34.35.475(b).
Mat-Su also argues that the superior court: (1) abused its discretion in denying Mat-Su's Alaska Civil Rule 56(f) continuance motion-, because such motions should be liberally granted; (2) erred in dismissing the contract action without considering the contract itself; (3) erred by not rejecting] the conversion of the motion for summary judgment into a motion to dismiss; and (4) erred in refusing to consider Mat-Su's motion for summary judgment, especially after order[ing] the deposition of . . . Burkhead to be taken. None of these arguments is availing. Rule 56(f) permits a court to order a continuance if a party needs additional time to conduct discovery to oppose a summary judgment motion. [36] Such motions should be freely granted only if certain conditions are met. [37] For instance, the party seeking the continuance must adequately explain why he or she cannot produce facts necessary to oppose summary judgment within the original time frame. [38] Mat-Su did not adequately explain what facts would be necessary to oppose Voss's motion. It also failed to explain why it could not produce any such facts within the original time frame. And Mat-Su also conceded that it did not need additional discovery to respond to Voss's motion. [39] The superior court did not abuse its discretion in declining to consider the terms of any assignment, Mat-Su's own mooted motion for summary judgment, and a deposition the court permitted [40] after it concluded that there was a controlling legal principle that rendered any possible factual disputes immaterial. And it did not err in granting summary judgment after reaching that conclusion.