Court Opinion

ID: 9538988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:45:07.209624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:22.122431
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
dissenting:
I agree with the ultimate goal of the county, the district court, and the majority of this Court, i.e., that property owned by indigents should be used to reimburse the county. However, I dissent from the application of convoluted procedures in this case, which have no basis in the law, in achieving that goal. In the first remand to the county from the district court, the county was either unwilling, reluctant, or undecided in making a final decision on Roper’s indigency status. When the issue was forced by the Ropers and IHC’s application for “extraordinary appellate relief,” ante at 3 (whatever that entails) to the district court, the county ultimately decided to settle the case, pay the hospital, and rely on its right of reimbursement. At that point, the appeal should have been viewed as being fully settled and finalized and dismissed. Instead, the county injected into the case the issue of reimbursement and the district court and this Court, both on appeal, changed the case from one involving an appeal from an indigency determination by the board of county commissioners to a judgment against the indigents. The judgment also attempts to affect the title of property both in Idaho and far away England.
The county’s rights should have been adjudicated as follows. Once the county settled with IHC for the payment of medical costs, the county, by virtue of I.C. § 32-1002 and contractual provisions, became a creditor of the Ropers by statutory subrogation with the right to seek reimbursement for the medical costs. The county should have proceeded just as any other creditor would have proceeded against the Ropers, by filing a complaint in the district court, reducing the complaint to judgment, and executing on the property of the debtors. The district court would have no problem in executing on the Idaho property. However, the district court would be totally without jurisdiction to affect any right in the property located in England. The county would be required to take its Idaho judgment and, by whatever means available in the law of England, to have the judgment validated in England and levy and execute on the English property through the English courts.
The county commissioners had no constitutional or statutory jurisdiction to litigate its own right of reimbursement. After paying the medical claim of the hospital, they simply become a creditor and must assert the creditor’s rights through a separate district court action just as any other creditor must do. Neither can the district court, on appeal from an indigency ruling of the county commission, grant a judgment against the indigents without the county filing a complaint and properly setting the issues according to the rules of civil procedure. This case truly represents “extraordinary appellate relief.”