Court Opinion

ID: 9957931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-05 18:02:34.1449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:32.206123
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                         No. 1D2023-2289
                  _____________________________

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,

    Petitioner,

    v.

IFTIKHAR RASUL, M.D.,

    Respondent.
                  _____________________________

Petition for Writ of Review Non-Final Agency Action—Original
Jurisdiction.

                          April 5, 2023

                  ON AN ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE.

PER CURIAM.

     In light of the petitioner’s response docketed December 23,
2023, the court discharges the order to show cause dated December
19, 2023.

     Within thirty days, the respondent shall show cause why the
court should not grant the petition for review of nonfinal agency
action.

KELSEY and M.K. THOMAS, JJ., concur; TANENBAUM, J., concurs
with an opinion.
                 _____________________________
TANENBAUM, J., concurring.

     The Department of Health asks that we review non-final
action of an administrative law judge (“ALJ”). The ALJ overruled
the department’s objections to Dr. Iftikhar Rasul’s anticipated
administrative subpoena of a counseling center’s mental health
records for one of his former patients. The department contends
that this subpoena is improper because it relies on a medical-
records release provided by the patient to the department in
another context. There is no signed release from the patient in
connection with the administrative subpoenas. According to the
department, if the records were produced in response to the
subpoena, confidential patient information would be divulged to
Dr. Rasul—who otherwise is unauthorized to receive that
information—that is not relevant to the administrative proceeding
against him. The department asserts that if the subpoena issues
1) the department suffers from the misuse of its authorization
form, fomenting distrust among patients; 2) the patient suffers
from the disclosure of confidential information to a doctor accused
of serious misconduct toward the patient; and 3) the responding
provider suffers because of the confusion over whether there in fact
is authorization for the disclosure.

     The court initially issued an order questioning whether the
department has standing to prosecute the current petition. I
supported issuance of the order because section 120.68(1)(a),
Florida Statutes, entitles “[a] party adversely affected by final
agency action . . . to judicial review” (emphasis supplied). Upon
further consideration, though, paragraph (b) of the same
subsection does not have the same “adverse effect” requirement as
a condition precedent to this court’s review of non-final agency
action. Instead, the threshold question for “immediate” judicial
review of a “preliminary, procedural, or intermediate order of . . .
an administrative law judge of the Division of Administrative
Hearings” is whether “review of the final agency decision would
not provide an adequate remedy.” § 120.68(1)(b), Fla. Stat. Article
V, section 4(b)(2) of the Florida Constitution cabins this court’s
authority to review internal administrative action of the executive
branch: That authority is “as prescribed by general law.”

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Paragraph (b) of section 120.68(1), quoted above, is that general
law.

     Now that this court has discharged the show-cause order
raising the question of standing, it orders Dr. Rasul to respond to
the petition. To be clear on this front, by ordering a response from
Dr. Rasul, we in essence are saying that the department has
sufficiently demonstrated in its petition that there is no adequate
remedy through review under section 120.68(1)(a) (i.e., review of
final agency action) for the purported harm described in the
petition. That means we should be granting the petition for review
of non-final agency action, because review is what we have agreed
to do after we receive the response. The relief that we might grant,
then, is not the review (which already has been granted by this
court’s ordering a response) but the setting aside of the ALJ’s order
overruling the department’s objections (which the department
expressly seeks as relief). A more accurately worded order in this
space, then, would speak in terms of granting the petition for
review—because we are agreeing to review the non-final agency
action—and ordering Dr. Rasul “to show cause why this court
should not set aside the order of the administrative law judge
currently under review.”

     At all events, even though the department asks that we
“quash” (more to the point, “set aside”) a non-final administrative
order, and not “final agency action,” “general law” limns the
parameters of this court’s ability to “set aside agency action,”
regardless of the finality of the agency action under review. Cf.
§ 120.68(7)(a)–(e), Fla. Stat. (enumerating several bases for setting
aside agency action); see also id. (8) (requiring approval of
administrative order on review unless the district court “finds a
ground for setting aside, modifying, remanding, or ordering agency
action or ancillary relief under a specified provision of this
section”). Hopefully, Dr. Rasul is clear on this. Notwithstanding
the imprecise language of the order, by this court’s ordering him to
“show cause” why it “should not grant the petition for review of
nonfinal agency action,” it is directing him to look to section
120.68(7) (and perhaps other provisions of that section) and
address whether there is a statutory basis for our setting aside the
order that overruled the department’s objections to his anticipated
third-party administrative subpoena.

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                _____________________________

Sarah Young Hodges, Chief Appellate Counsel, Department of
Health, Tallahassee, for Petitioner.

No appearance for Respondent.

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