Opinion ID: 75586
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendants' Reading of the Final Judgment

Text: Defendants' first argument is that the final judgment, strictly construed, required only that they amend Florida's Medicaid Plan to include a reasonable waiting list time period for the provision of ICF/DD services and not that they actually provide those services within a reasonable time. Defendants point out that they have already made an amendment to the Plan adopting the required reasonable waiting list time period. Attachment 3.1-A of the Florida Medicaid Plan, which was amended on April 27, 1998, now provides that: (2) The agency's designee will maintain a waiting list for persons who have been determined by the agency's designee to be eligible for, require and have chosen ICF/DD placement. The time from placement on the waiting list until admission to an ICF/DD for such persons will not exceed 90 days. The contention is that the final judgment did not require the defendants to actually admit those on the waiting list to an ICF/DD as their own amendment to the Plan requires, and that the district court should not have concerned itself with whether the required waiting list time period was actually making any difference in the provision of services. This contention is untenable. The defendants themselves have not previously interpreted the final judgment so narrowly. For example, in the Emergency Motion to Stay the Final Judgment, which the defendants filed on October 23, 1996, they argued: Without a stay of the Final Judgment, defendants will be required to immediately begin to create additional institutional infrastructure in the form of bricks and mortar, and that [p]resumably, if there are not sufficient ICF/DD beds available, the Final Judgment would require the actual construction of facilities within 90 days, an impossible feat. The defendants' new-found interpretation of the final judgment is also directly at odds with our prior interpretation of it. In Chiles, we rejected the defendants' argument that the district court abused its discretion in enjoining them to provide the Medicaid services at issue within ninety days. 136 F.3d at 721-22.