11 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 863c

Insurance — Personal injury protection — Coverage — MRI — Payment of allowable amount of Medicare Part B — Medical consumer price index adjustment — Where legislature intended that amount of payment authorized for MRI was to be adjusted annually, and legislature’s subsequent amendment of statute to set standard for adjustment as CPI for all urban consumers for the south reveals what intent of legislature was, error to grant summary judgment for insurer on claim no adjustment was possible that because no statewide medical CPI existed

BETTY FAIR, Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTO-MOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee. Circuit Court, 7th Judicial Circuit (Appellate) in and for Volusia County. Case No. 04-00004-CAAP. July 15, 2004. Counsel: Luis R. Gracia, Rue & Ziffra, P.A., Port Orange, for Appellant. Raymond L. Roebeck, and John D. Osgathorpe, Jacksonville, for Appellee.

(DOYLE, J.) This appeal involves the interpretation of the meaning of “the medical Consumer Price Index for Florida” (CPI), by which adjustments were to be calculated to the amount a PIP insurer was required to pay for an MRI, pursuant to § 627.736(5)(b)5, Fla. Stat. (2001). The parties agreed that there was not a statewide CPI for Florida. The appellant argued below and continues to contend before this Court that the CPI for Florida is the CPI for the southern region of the country.¹ The appellee’s position is that the CPI for Florida never existed and, therefore, no adjustments were possible. The appellee relied on Holz v. New Hampshire Indemnity Co., Inc., 10 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1036c (Fla. 13th Cir. 2003). The Holz court held that “[t]he statute was simply in error.” The county court in the instant case relied upon Holz to justify granting the appellee’s motion for summary judgment and denying the appellant’s cross motion for summary judgment. Such reliance was misplaced. Application of well established rules of statutory construction lead inexorably to the conclusion that the appellant’s position is correct.

“[L]egislative intent is the polestar by which the court[s] must be guided in statutory construction, even when at odds with the strict letter of the statute.” Burris v. State, 825 So.2d 1034, 1036 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “In the interpretation of statutes words in common use are to be construed in their natural, plain, and ordinary signification, unless it appears they were used in a technical or other sense. The Legislature is presumed to know the meaning of words and the rules of grammar.” Campus Crusade for Christ v. Unemployment Appeals Com’n, 702 So.2d 572, 576 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997) (citations omitted). “It is a recognized principle of statutory construction that the legislature is presumed to know the law in passing statutes and consequently the legislation is to be construed upon the premise that the particular statute in question is to be applied relative to other statutes affecting the same subject matter.” Duval County School Bd. v. State, Dept. of Admin., 500 So.2d 158, 160 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

“In addition to the statute’s plain language, a basic rule of statutory construction provides that the Legislature does not intend to enact useless provisions, and courts should avoid readings that would render part of a statute meaningless.” State v. Goode, 830 So.2d 817, 824 (Fla. 2002) (citations omitted). “It is a fundamental rule of statutory construction that statutory language cannot be construed so as to render it potentially meaningless.” Goodwin v. State, 751 So.2d 537, 547 (Fla. 1999) (citation omitted). “Construction of a statute which would lead to an absurd result should be avoided.” Johnson v. Beary, 665 So.2d 334, 335 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995).

“The court has the right and the duty, in arriving at the correct meaning of a prior statute,to consider subsequent legislation. Courts are permitted to consider subsequent legislation as evidence of the legislature’s intent in construing a statute. Our courts have a duty to consider subsequent legislation in arriving at a correct interpretation of a prior statute.” G.E.L. Corp. v. Department of Environmental Protection, __So. 2d__, 29 Fla. L. Weekly D1352, n. 2, 2004 WL 1224331 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004) (citations omitted). “[W]hen an amendment to a statute is enacted soon after controversies as to the interpretation of the original act arise [i.e., Holz], a court may consider that amendment as a legislative interpretation of the original law and not as a substantive change thereof.” G.E.L. Corp. v. Department of Environmental Protection, __So. 2d__, 29 Fla. L. Weekly D1352, 2004 WL 1224331, n. 3 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004) (citation omitted); in accord Romine v. Florida Birth Related Neurological Injury Compensation Ass’n, 842 So.2d 148, 153, n. 6 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003).

The legislature intended that the amount of authorized payments was to be adjusted annually. To accept the appellee’s position, one would have to accept that the legislature unwittingly enacted the section because under the interpretation of the appellee, the subsection is meaningless. For the legislature to intend that payments be adjusted by a nonexistent standard would be absurd. The appellant points out accurately that the only CPI to completely subsume the state of Florida is the south regional CPI. The legislature later amended § 627.736(5)(b)5, Fla. Stat. (2003), to set the standard by which the authorized payments were to be adjusted: “the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers for the South.” This legislative interpretation to the original law reveals precisely what the intent of the legislature was. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s orders and remand for further action consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED. (HUTCHESON, J., concurs.)

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¹“The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes monthly indexes for the national CPI as well as from regional indexes: north east, mid-west, south, and west. Indexes for major metropolitan areas are published monthly (3 areas): bi-monthly (11 areas), or semi-annually (12 areas).” Holz, supra.

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