Standing in Rule Challenges After Office of Insurance Regulation & Financial Services Commission v. Secure Enterprises, LLC

Last fall, a court made a decision in a case that seemed to change the rules for who can challenge a law in Florida. The decision said that a company couldn’t challenge a rule about insurance forms. After that, in another case, a judge wrote a long document explaining how the rules for who can challenge a law have changed over the years. The judge looked at many court decisions and showed that the rules about who can challenge a law have been different at different times. The basic rule is that someone can challenge a law if it will cause them real and immediate harm, and if their interest is related to the law. But the courts have had trouble applying this rule consistently. The standing test is used in Florida to determine if a party has the right to challenge a rule. To have standing, the party must show that they will be directly harmed by the rule. For example, if a person or company will be penalized because of the rule, they have standing to challenge it. This has been shown in cases where an engineer was concerned about unsafe docks and a person failed a breathalyzer test. If the rule will affect them in a real and immediate way, they have standing to challenge it. Before Secure Enterprises, it was generally thought that just suffering a financial loss was enough to have the right to challenge a rule. For example, the Florida Medical Association was allowed to challenge a rule that would let optometrists prescribe certain drugs, even though only doctors were supposed to be able to do that at the time. Similarly, the Dental Hygienist Association was allowed to challenge a rule that would let dental hygiene schools get approved even if they didn’t meet certain standards. Two cases showed standing based on economic injury. In one case, a company challenged a rule because it would cause them to lose a big share of the market. In another case, a company that provided education materials to health care providers had standing because a rule would have a big financial impact on them. In other cases, people have standing to challenge rules that directly regulate their profession or affect their industry, even if the rules don’t directly affect their job. If a rule might hurt you in the future, you can challenge it even if it hasn’t hurt you yet. But the harm can’t just be a guess, it has to be likely to happen. If a rule has taken away your rights or interests, you can challenge it too. In a recent case, a company challenged a rule because it hurt their sales, but the court said it wasn’t enough of a harm to challenge the rule. The court said the rule was meant to help homeowners, not companies like the one that brought the challenge. The court also said the company’s injury wasn’t the kind of harm that would usually allow a challenge to the rule. Overall, the court said the company didn’t have a good enough reason to challenge the rule. And the court said there are a lot of different opinions about when and how someone can challenge a rule, so it’s hard to know for sure what the rules are. In order to have a say in challenging a rule, it’s important to prove that you have been hurt by the rule. This usually means showing that the rule affects your job or industry, imposes a penalty on you, takes away your rights, or directly affects you in some way. It’s also important to show a specific injury that is not just a guess, especially if it’s about money and not competition. A recent court case called Secure Enterprises didn’t really change the rules, but it might be taken into account when deciding if someone has standing to challenge a rule. So, it’s important to understand the rules and court cases and be able to show how the rule has hurt you. When challenging a rule, it’s important to understand who has the right to challenge it. In Florida, the law says that a person can challenge a rule if it affects them a lot. Look at past cases to see how the judge has decided on standing issues. It’s also important to understand the zone of interests, or who is affected by the rule. Make sure to research and understand the cases that the judge has looked at in the past to help your case. In some court cases, the parties did not have the right to challenge a rule because they were not directly affected by it. Only one case found that the injury could potentially be related to the law, but the petitioners did not prove they were actually harmed by it. This article was written by Brittany Adams Long, who works with a law firm in Tallahassee. It was originally published in a newsletter and is reprinted here with permission.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/standing-in-rule-challenges-after-office-of-insurance-regulation-financial-services-commission-v-secure-enterprises-llc/