The Tallahassee Branch of the NAACP officially filed a lawsuit in an attempt to reverse the controversial transfer of Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare to Florida State University, following through on its earlier threat of pursuing legal action over the deal.
On April 30, the NAACP, alongside several individuals, made its case that the city should have abided by a Florida statute that details how sales of municipal hospitals are supposed to play out and because of this, the hospital should be returned to the city.
“We can un-ring this bell,” said Jack McLean, a former mayor and the attorney representing the organization in the case.
“The City’s actions jeopardize the provision of healthcare to indigent residents of the City and County because of the City’s action, no lease between the City and TMH or between FSU and TMH, in fact, exists,” according to the 9-page lawsuit. “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.”
While city and state officials maintain the law does not apply, McLean told the Tallahassee Democrat that the plaintiffs in the case are alleging that the hospital was sold without transparency at an undervalue and wasn’t offered to multiple bidders, which the statute requires.
“This is not a step we wanted to take. However, it is a necessary step to protect public assets and ensure accountability to the people of this community,” a statement from the NAACP reads. “Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is a publicly owned asset built over generations. Any transfer of that asset must reflect its true value and must preserve the longstanding obligation to provide care for uninsured and underinsured residents.”
Concerns about indigent care have fueled opposition to the transfer, and the NAACP’s lawsuit also raises arguments that if the transfer had been conducted per the statute, a trust fund would have been created from any proceeds of a sale to specifically cover care costs for those who can’t afford it.
A provision in the city and university’s transfer agreement requires the university to continue indigent care, but critics have said it isn’t enough to ensure care for all.
“The City’s March 11, 2026, action places, at risk, the Medicare/Medicaid provider agreements under which TMH operates, as well as related provider agreements,” the lawsuit states. “These agreements are linked to TMH’s license to operate the hospital.”
It’s not that the NAACP is against the improvement of healthcare, but the manner in which the city went about the deal wasn’t proper, McLean said.
“The city should have gone through this statute from the very beginning and because they didn’t, the transfer is improper, illegal and ill-advised,” he said.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued an opinion that hospital sale law doesn’t apply to FSU-TMH merger
The new academic medical center, patterned off of the UF Health enterprise, offers bold promises to patients seeking better healthcare but came together under a cloud of controversy as hospital officials accused city leaders and FSU of holding secret meetings to engineer a hostile takeover of the hospital.
The city manager and city attorney have previously said the state’s hospital sales law doesn’t apply.
In a February letter to FSU Board of Trustees Chair Peter Collins, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said he too didn’t think the statute applied to Tallahassee’s situation because “FSU is a governmental entity, and section 155.40 does not apply to the transfer of assets to a governmental entity.”
The law dictates how a sale to a for-profit or non-profit entity is to play out, but FSU is a “governmental entity,” the state attorney general said.
“A state agency is not the same as a not-for-profit entity,” Uthmeier wrote. “Consequently, the City’s potential transfer of assets to FSU is not subject to the requirements of section 155.40.”
The city commission approved the transfer March 13, and it was completed April 10, even though more than a dozen agreements between the hospital and university remained unresolved at the time and a lease deal has not been completed.
The NAACP was one of the leading voices of opposition trying to get the city to slow down while there was still unfinished business lingering between TMH and FSU.
A week before the commission met to approve the transfer, the NAACP held a community meeting to address its urgent concerns over how things were playing out. It was at this meeting that the local chapter of the organization first alluded to the possibility of lawsuit if the transfer progressed.
Read the full lawsuit below
Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X: @elenabarreraaa.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee NAACP sues city over TMH-FSU hospital transfer
Reporting by Elena Barrera, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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