Request By:
Hon. William W. Pollard
District Judge
Garrard County Courthouse
Lancaster, Kentucky 40444
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
You request our opinion on a question arising from the administration of KRS 441.010, relating to medical treatment for indigent county jail prisoners.
Your letter reads in part:
"This is to request your opinion regarding construction of K.R.S. 441.010 concerning medical treatment for indigent prisoners. The specific question: Is an indigent prisoner under arrest for a felony but in need of immediate emergency medical treatment prior to being lodged in the county jail a "prisoner in the county jail" for the purposes of K.R.S. 441.010(3)? The question is of some importance as a strictly literal interpretation of its meaning would clearly obviate the remedial provisions of the statute in situations where an individual is placed in custody but taken for medical treatment before being technically lodged in the county jail. "
KRS 441.010(3) reads:
"If a prisoner in the county jail needs medical care and is a needy person, the unit of government shall pay for his medical expenses, except that any payment for medical care for prisoners of the United States government shall be governed by federal law. The determination of whether or not a person is a needy person shall be made pursuant to KRS 31.120. Such determination may be made after medical care is given if a licensed physician determines that medical care should not be delayed. The unit of government shall not pay for medical care which could be postponed until after the period of confinement without hazard to the needy person except for the initial examination by the physician to determine whether medical care is needed. Only a licensed physician may determine that medical care can be postponed without hazard. The amount and nature of payments under this subsection shall be subject to the following terms and conditions:"
The literal language of the statute might suggest that the indigent prisoner must actually be physically in the county jail before he is given medical attention. Clearly where the indigent prisoner is physically in the county jail and needs medical attention, the county jailer has the responsibility for seeing to it that he receives such attention. Then where a licensed physician determines that medical care should not be delayed, the medical care can be furnished at the expense of the government whose law or laws have been violated.
However, a reading of the entire statute causes us to believe that the legislature intended to assure that medical attention would be given to indigents who are charged with committing a crime and who will be at some early stage after apprehension incarcerated in the county jail, or confined therein under sentence. Obviously the defendant who makes bail, or who is not given a sentence of confinement, will have to look out after himself in seeking medical attention, whether he pays for it or not. Thus the general purpose of KRS 441.010 was to assure that indigent defendants not making bail, or who are confined under sentence, would receive needed medical attention. This view is buttressed by the provision that the determination of indigency may be made after medical care is given "if a licensed physician determines that medical care should not be delayed. " (Emphasis added.) In addition, the statute [subsection (3)] provides in part that the unit of government shall not pay for medical care which could be postponed until after the period of confinement without hazard to the needy person except for the initial examination by the physician to determine whether medical care is needed.
Thus the emphasis of the statute is not on the matter of the precise time of incarceration, but is on the medical question of whether the furnishing of medical attention may be delayed to a time after confinement in the jail without hazard to the indigent defendant.
Judge Thomas, in Oates. v. Simpson, 295 Ky. 433, 174 S.W.2d 505 (1943), at p.507, wrote this about statutory general purpose:
"The rule for the interpretation of statutes is that literal language contained in some parts of it, in apparent conflict with the general scheme should surrender to the general purpose and intent of the legislature as gathered from all parts of the statute."
In Perry v. Commerce Loan Co., 383 U.S. 392, 15 L. Ed. 2d 827, 86 S. Ct. 852 (1966), Justice Clark, for the Court, wrote this concerning looking beyond the literal language of a statute (at 15 L. Ed. 2d 833, 834), citing another Supreme Court case:
"There is, of course, no more persuasive evidence of the purpose of a statute than the words by which the legislature undertook to give expression to its wishes. Often these words are sufficient in and of themselves to determine the purpose of the legislation. In such cases we have followed their plain meaning. When that meaning has led to absurd or futile results, however, this Court has looked beyond the words to the purpose of the act. Frequently, however, even when the plain meaning did not produce absurd results but merely an unreasonable one 'plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole' this Court has followed that purpose, rather than the literal words."
As we pointed out above, we do not believe that following the literal language of the statute will suffice, especially since the literalism is in conflict with the general purpose. Here the following of the literal language would produce the absurd and unreasonable result of excluding from the operation of the statute the case of the indigent defendant arrested for a felony, but who has not been incarcerated at the time he needs medical attention. We do not believe the Courts would fail, upon an analysis of this problem in depth, to sense the general humanitarian purpose evident here.
The point is that the indigent defendant needing medical attention does not need that care because he is incarcerated. He needs the care as a medical determination that he cannot put it off without hazard to his health. The incarceration is merely a matter of physical restriction upon his seeking medical attention on his own. His being under arrest, without incarceration, presents no distinguishing feature, in the latter regard.