A judge soon will decide whether the Tallahassee NAACP’s lawsuit over the sale of the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare hospital to Florida State University can move forward.
The city of Tallahassee on May 22 filed a motion to dismiss the civil rights organization’s case. On July 21, Circuit Judge Lee Marsh, who is up for re-election this year, will be hearing both sides.
The NAACP, alongside several individuals, contends that the hospital sale jeopardizes indigent care, and that the city should have abided by a Florida law that details how sales of municipal hospitals are supposed to play out. The hospital should be returned to the city, the suit says.
“If FSU does not execute a new lease with TMH, TMH will, in effect, be operating without a valid license … which could result in involuntary termination of physicians and medical staff’s privileges at the hospital,” it adds.
The city, however, argued in its motion that critics of the sale “need not worry.”
“The complaint speculates that because TMH and FSU have not amended the existing lease, indigent care is in jeopardy,” the city’s motion says.
“That worry is not only pure speculation of some future injury to someone who may seek care; it is speculation that parties would ignore their own binding contractual obligations and ignore duties reflected in recorded covenants. It is also contrary to the presumption that public officials will not act lawlessly.”
FSU is required to maintain or even improve indigent care, the city wrote.
The city, which hired Tallahassee-based attorneys with healthcare and FDA practice expertise at the Greenberg Traurig firms, maintained that the statute regulating the sale of municipal hospitals doesn’t apply to TMH.
Both the city and FSU are governmental agencies and the language of the law differentiates between hospitals operated by governmental agencies and for-profit or non-profit entities, according to the city’s motion. (TMH is a private, not-for-profit healthcare system that is governed by its own board of directors.)
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier also weighed in on this matter in February, coming to the same conclusion.
“The defining characteristic of a ‘municipal hospital’ is municipal ownership and control of the hospital itself — not merely ownership of the underlying real property,” the city wrote. “Here, the city owns the land and has leased it, and the hospital is operated by an independent nonprofit entity.”
Jack McLean, a former Tallahassee mayor and the attorney representing the NAACP, declined to comment on the current status of the case. He did say the NAACP would be responding to the city’s motion ahead of the next hearing.
A city spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X: @elenabarreraaa.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: City asks judge to toss out lawsuit on TMH hospital sale to FSU
Reporting by Elena Barrera, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Elena Barrera, Tallahassee Democrat | USA TODAY Network
