Certificate of Need for a Kidney Transplant Program In Florida

In Shands v. Agency for Health Care Administration and St. Luke's Hospital, 695 So. 2d 793 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997), the First District Court of Appeals affirmed a Final Order of the Agency for Health Care Administration which adopted, reluctantly, a Recommended Order of Dismissal of a Petitioner similarly situated to Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade County, Florida In Shands, the court affirmed the award of a CON to St. Luke's Hospital for a liver transplantation program. Shands, a provider in another health service planning district, but in the same transplant service planning area as St. Luke's was not allowed to participate in the Chapter 120 adjudicatory proceeding because of lack of standing. The standing provision in question only gives those facilities within the same district the ability to initiate an action or intervene in an administrative hearing regarding the issuance of a certificate of need. . See Chaffee v. Miami Transfer Co., Inc., 288 So. 2d 209, 215 (Fla. 1974)(courts, in construing a statute, may not invoke a limitation or add words to the statute not placed there by the legislature); see also Beasley Broadcasting, Inc. v. Department of State, 693 So. 2d 668 (Fla. 1997)(finding that neither the Division of Licensing nor the court can add language to an unambiguous statute); Commercial Coating Corp. v. State, 548 So. 2d 677, 678 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989)(stating that "in construing statutes courts may not invoke a limitation or add words to the statute not placed there by the legislature."). See also, generally, State v. Cohen, 696 So. 2d 435, 438 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)(courts are without the power to construe an unambiguous statute in a way that would extend, modify, or limit its express terms or its reasonable and obvious implications).