Court Opinion

ID: 9794169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:00:44.291657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:38.983350
License: Public Domain

SIMMS, J.,
CONCURRING SPECIALLY:
I concur with the result of the majority opinion insofar as it finds the physician’s hen is vahd and protects her interest in the personal injury settlement proceeds. J write separately to point out that 42 O.S.1991 § 46(D) conflicts with the statutory physician’s hen scheme enacted by the legislature, and results in such confusion that it defeats the purpose of the statute. It is impossible to reach any construction which gives effect to the provisions of § 46(D) without doing violence to the intent of the hen statute.1
It is with good reason that the majority opinion strains with the effort of trying to make sense of § 46(D) and applying it to the facts before us. The effect of § 46(A)(B) and (C) is to give physicians a hen upon any recovery a patient might receive from a tort-feasor who caused the injuries necessitating the medical services, and upon claims the patient might have by reason of the injuries suffered. The procedures required for perfecting the hen claim are set out in § 46(C) and are based on notice of the claim to those who will pay and receive the proceeds. That section requires that before payment of the money is made to the injured person or his representative, a written notice setting forth the particulars of the claim including the insurance policy, if any, must be sent to the person, firm or corporation against whom the claim is made, and to the injured person and his attorney. The claim must also be filed on the mechanic’s and materialman’s hen docket in the appropriate county.
The jarring words of § 46(D), requiring the lien to be enforced by filing suit within one year of filing the hen with the county clerk, conflict with the preceding provisions of the statute. The enforcement procedure of § 46(D) is unrelated to the effect and *921purpose of the statute and unrelated to the processes by which the statute’s purpose will be effected.2 The time limitation of one year from filing with the county clerk for enforcing the lien makes no sense and requires a vain act, for there will not be any insurance proceeds or other funds to be foreclosed against within one year of receiving medical treatment and filing with the county clerk. The case before us is typical. The usual time period required for an injured person to receive a judgment, settlement or compromise for injuries suffered as a result of negligence of another will greatly exceed a twelve month period. That is common knowledge. If a time limitation were needed for this physician’s lien procedure, one which would make sense would be to allow a physician one year from the time he or she received notice of the patients recovery of a settlement.3
With the exception of § 46(D), the physician’s lien provisions are nearly identical to the statutory lien granted hospitals in their patients’ recoveries of settlement or other proceeds resulting from claims for injuries caused by third parties or accident, set forth at 42 O.S. 1991, §§ 43, 44. See Vinzant v. Hillcrest Medical Ctr., 609 P.2d 1274 (Old. 1980) and Hillcrest Medical Ctr. v. Fleming, 643 P.2d 868 (Okl.App.1982).
The hospital lien and the physician’s lien are both made inferior to the lien or claim of the injured person’s attorney. The practical effect of the application of § 46(D) as written, and as construed here by the majority, would be that when settlement for an injured patient/client is received, the attorney would be entitled to his claim and the hospital would be entitled to its claim, if it had sent notice to the involved payors and payees and filed in the county clerk’s office. The physician, however, even if proper notice had been sent and filed, would be denied his lien claim unless a civil action had been brought within one year from filing, or “refiling”, the claim with the county clerk.
While we are not presented here with arguments urging us to strike this section, it is obvious to me that the legislature needs to be advised of this conflict within the statutory provisions, and the need of a legislative remedy.
Additionally, I am concerned that the majority opinion could be read as holding that the issue here is the validity of the physician’s lien, in light of the physician’s failure to comply with the requirement of § 46(D). This requirement, however ill advised, is only procedural, it does not concern substantive elements which give rise to the lien. The issue raised then is one only of priority, the effectiveness of this lien against other claims, not the physician’s right and entitlement to a claim of lien. See, Williamson v. Winning-ham, 186 P.2d 644 (Okl.1947); McCormack v. Air Ctr., Inc., 571 P.2d 835 (Okl.1977).
Inasmuch as the facts before us do not indicate that the priority of claims was involved in this case, the physician’s failure to comply with the requirement of § 46(D) would not have affected her rights under the lien in any event.
I am authorized to state that Justice OPA-LA concurs in the majority opinion but also joins me in the views expressed herein.

. See Balfour v. Jacobs, 867 P.2d 1364 (Okl.App. 1993).

. The provisions of § 46(D) appear to have been taken from 42 O.S.1991, § 172. That section, however, pertains to enforcing liens on real prop- ■ erty and is not applicable to the purposes the legislature attempted to serve with the enactment of this statutory protection for physicians in their treatment of patients injured by another.

. See for instance Regents of University of N.M. v. Lacey, 107 N.M. 742, 764 P.2d 873 (1988) regarding that time limitation for enforcing a hospital lien.