Opinion ID: 200439
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other State Statutes

Text: PRCCCC relies on statutes outside its own enabling act to argue that it is an arm of the state. It points to the definition of public funds set forth in 33 P.R. Laws Ann. § 3022(11), (14), which provide: (11) Commonwealth of Puerto Rico -- Comprises its municipalities, agencies, public corporations, political subdivisions and other dependencies or instrumentalities. (14) Public funds or public treasury -- Means all bonds or liabilities and evidences of indebtedness and all moneys belonging to the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the municipalities, agencies, public, municipal and state corporations, political subdivisions 15 Interestingly, PRCCCC's own evidence showed that one of the purposes of creating the public corporation was that public funds allocated to the hospital could be insulated from the budgetary constraints the [Commonwealth's] Health Department always had. Another purpose was to serve as justification to 'privatize' the health system. These are also indicia that the Commonwealth wanted PRCCCC to be at arm's length, not to be an arm of the state. -26- and other dependencies, and all moneys, securities, bonds and evidences of indebtedness received and kept by officials or employees of the aforementioned entities, in their official character. We reject for four reasons the contention that this definition of public funds is a statement that all public corporations established by Puerto Rico are arms of the state. First, the definitions are explicitly limited to the subtitle in which they appear, a part of the Penal Code of Puerto Rico. See id. § 3022. Second, when Puerto Rico has chosen to make an entity an arm of the state, it has used other language. For example, the Medical Services Administration (MSA), another health care entity created by the Commonwealth,16 was created as an instrumentality of the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, attached to the Commonwealth Department of Health . . . under the direction and supervision of the Secretary of Health. 24 P.R. Laws Ann. § 342b; see Rodriguez Diaz v. Sierra Martinez, 717 F. Supp. 27, 29-31 (D.P.R. 1989). Third, it is a maxim of statutory construction that the more specific statute, here PRCCCC's enabling act, governs over the more general, such as the definitions in § 3022. See In re 16 PRCCCC witness Zapata asserts claims that the structure of the PRCCCC is similar, if not identical to that of the public medical center known (in English) as the Medical Services Administration (MSA). This is untrue, as discussed above. Furthermore, unlike the PRCCCC enabling legislation, see 24 P.R. Laws Ann. §§ 343-343k, the MSA enabling legislation provides that civil litigants against the MSA are subject to the cap on recovery established under the Commonwealth's state sovereign immunity, 24 P.R. Laws Ann. § 343g. -27- Weinstein, 272 F.3d 39, 43 (1st Cir. 2001). Fourth, such a construction would be inconsistent with a number of our cases finding various public authorities and corporations created by Puerto Rico not to be arms of the state. See, e.g., Metcalf & Eddy, 991 F.2d 935; Royal Carribean Corp., 973 F.2d 8 (Breyer,