Opinion ID: 874230
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The district court's erroneous case analysis

Text: In addition to the misapplication of the reimbursement provision, the majority relies heavily on tenuous case law analogies to find that speculative future income constitutes a resource for determining whether a person is eligible for medical indigency benefits. The first case that the majority relies on is Carpenter v. Twin Falls Cnty., 107 Idaho 575, 691 P.2d 1190 (1984). In Carpenter, the applicant seeking to be found medically indigent had voluntarily quit his job after making his application to the Board. Id. at 585, 691 P.2d at 1200. This Court found that the applicant was indigent regardless of his employment status. Id. The Carpenter Court went on to find that the Board was free to consider all the facts, including that Mr. Carpenter was a healthy individual who had voluntarily quit his job. Id. This court's logic in Carpenter, allowing a Board to consider an applicant's earning potential, is not applicable to this case for two reasons. First, and most importantly, when Carpenter was decided I.C. § 31-3502 did not contain any definition of resources. S.L. 1984, ch. 99, § 1. Thus, this Court was not bound by the words of the legislature in arriving at its conclusions of law. Today, however, this is not the case. Idaho Code § 31-3502(17) clearly and unambiguously enumerates what sources of capital constitute a resource for the purpose of initially determining medical indigency. Second, this Court found that Carpenter was indigent regardless of his employment status, thus, the language from Carpenter that the district court relies on is dicta because it was not necessary or essential to determine the outcome of the case. See Smith v. Angell, 122 Idaho 25, 35, 830 P.2d 1163, 1173 (1992). Such dicta cannot be relied upon as binding precedent. Shrives v. Talbot, 91 Idaho 338, 346, 421 P.2d 133, 141 (1966). The majority also relies heavily on this Court's opinion in Application of Ackerman, 127 Idaho 495, 903 P.2d 84 (1995). In Ackerman, the applicant claimed that his monthly expenses, including payments for satellite T.V., a cellular phone, and a motorcycle, rendered him medically indigent. Id. at 496, 903 P.2d at 85. This Court disagreed and stated that the applicant's lifestyle choices could not be used as an excuse for indigency and that Ackerman presently had the ability to pay off his medical expenses. Id. at 497-98, 903 P.2d at 86-87. In this case, the majority found that Freeman's decision to care for her two children, ages five and one respectively, after another job had fallen through, was a lifestyle choice that precluded her from receiving benefits. Strangely, the majority found that the applicant's decision in Ackerman to frivolously spend on motorcycles, cell phones, and satellite television was sufficiently analogous to a mother's decision to remain home and care for her children. Regardless of whether this Court finds Freeman's decision to care for her children is a lifestyle choice, the financial situation of the applicant in Ackerman is quite different from Freeman's financial situation in this case. To reiterate, in Ackerman this Court found that, but for the applicant's lifestyle choices he presently h[ad] the ability to pay off his medical expenses. Id. However, Freeman does not have the present ability to pay off her bills by simply eliminating luxury items from her monthly costs. Instead, her ability to pay was premised on the arbitrary assumption that she could promptly obtain employment, no more than 2.5 miles from home, during the hours that her husband did not work, which were the primary hours of employment, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Unlike the applicant in Ackerman, Freeman was not presently capable of paying her medical cost when she applied for benefits. Thus, this Court's conclusion in Ackerman is not applicable to the present case. The Board's finding that future income constitutes a resource for the purpose of determining eligibility of medical indigency benefits was arbitrary and capricious. Likewise, the majority's affirmance of the Board's decision ignores the plain language of the Act, does not comport with the legislative intent for the Act, and runs counter to prior case law precedent established by this Court. W. JONES, J., concurring in dissent: