Florida has a law that says if someone appeals a decision to take away their license, they can automatically keep their license while they appeal, unless the court decides it would be dangerous for the state. The Florida Supreme Court recently made a decision that clarified which types of actions count as taking away a license. This article talks about the different kinds of stays (or keeping your license while appealing), the types of licenses involved, the case that led to the Supreme Court decision, the decision itself, and what it means for the future. If you don’t like a decision that a government agency has made, you can ask for a pause on the decision while you appeal it. You have to show that you have a good chance of winning the appeal and that you will be seriously harmed if the decision isn’t paused. If the decision you are appealing is about taking away a license, you will probably get a pause unless the agency can prove that it would be really dangerous to let you keep the license while you appeal. When a party asks for a pause in a legal case, the agency involved can argue against it. But if there’s no risk to people’s health or safety, the court will usually grant the request. If circumstances change, the agency can ask the court to change the decision.
There are two kinds of licenses in Florida’s law: one lasts until something happens to end it, and the other has a set expiration date. The law gives more protections to the first kind of license. The second kind can expire before a renewal is approved, but the law might extend it automatically. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) regulates health-care providers in Florida. Providers must renew their license every two years. If they submit their renewal less than 60 days before it expires, they have to pay a fine but their application will still be processed. When they submit their renewal application, AHCA has 30 days to review it and let the provider know about any mistakes. The provider has 21 days to fix the mistakes. If they don’t, their application is considered incomplete and will not be reviewed further. If this happens, the provider can request a hearing to dispute the decision. If AHCA ultimately denies the renewal, the provider can reapply for a new license right away. The court has been debating when a certain rule should apply for a while now. The First and Fourth district courts of appeal talked about it in Terrell Oil Company v. Department of Transportation, Silver Show, Inc. v. Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and Beach Club Adult Center, LLC v. Agency for Health Care Administration. Terrell Oil and Silver Show both appealed decisions that denied their business licenses. They asked for a stay so they could keep operating while they appealed. However, the courts ruled that the law did not automatically give them a stay. The courts said that denying a license is different from suspending or revoking a license, and that licensing decisions are separate from disciplinary actions. Beach Club and Ybor Medical Injury and Accident Clinic tried to renew their licenses with the state, but didn’t submit all the required information on time. The state said their applications were incomplete and would not be considered further. Beach Club didn’t follow the rules for disputing this decision and lost their license, but Ybor did and went to court. The court agreed with Ybor and said they could keep their license while they appealed the state’s decision. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that a health care agency’s decision to withdraw a clinic’s renewal application did not count as suspending or revoking its license. The court said that the law only applies to decisions that actually take away an existing license, not just to decisions that affect a business. So, in this case, the agency’s decision didn’t count as a suspension or revocation. The court decided that when a license renewal application is withdrawn or denied, the applicant can still ask the court for permission to keep using their current license while they appeal the decision. The court didn’t say if denials should be treated differently, or if a discretionary stay would actually let an applicant keep using their current license. It’s still unclear how this will work in the future. Recently, there has been confusion among district courts about whether a rule that usually puts a hold on something applies to cases involving licenses that have expiration dates set by law. The Florida Supreme Court clarified this with a recent opinion in the Ybor case. It will be interesting to see how courts handle requests to put a hold on things in the future, since they can’t extend the life of a license that has already expired.
Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/to-stay-or-not-to-stay-the-florida-supreme-court-clarifies-in-ybor-the-applicability-of-the-presumptive-stay-provision-in-f-s-%c2%a7120-683/
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