A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

SB 53 amending the law on the crime of child seduction was passed by the Indiana General Assembly. Child seduction generally involves sexual activity between an individual who is 16 or 17 years old and an individual who is 18 years or older and in a position of trust or authority with respect to the 16 or 17 year old.

This bill defined “professional relationship” as being one where a person has a license issued by the state or political subdivision based on training or experience in the person’s occupation; or where the person’s position is one where counseling, supervising, instructing, or recruiting children forms a significant part of the employment; and the person has a relationship with the child based on such licensure or position.

An 18 year old or older person commits child seduction when they have sexual activity with the 16 or 17 year old where the older person:

(1) has or had a professional relationship with the younger person;
(2) may exert undue influence on the younger person because of the professional relationship; and
(3) uses or exerts the person’s professional relationship to engage in the sexual activity.

I don’t have a problem with the concept here. If you have authority, you shouldn’t be using it to have sex with teenagers. But, it did highlight to me the difficulty of drafting legislation in this area. Strictly read, I think the crime would apply to an 18 year old life guard hooking up with a 17 year old who goes to the pool regularly.

The lifeguard is employed in a position where supervising children is a significant part of the employment. The lifeguard may well have developed a relationship with the 17 year old because of his position. The lifeguard’s influence and attractiveness to the 17 year old could well be enhanced by the lifeguard’s status as (relative to ordinary pool patrons) a person of authority and interest. And, obviously, an 18 year old lifeguard is not going to be above leveraging the position to enhance romantic prospects.

Now, even if I’m right on the strict construction; I wouldn’t think any self-respecting prosecutor would pursue such a case. But, where possible, you really don’t want the good will of fallible humans to determine whether execution of your law is a good thing or bad thing.

The General Assembly passed SB 5 concerning hospital and ambulance liens. If I’m reading it right, it adds a Medicare or Medicaid patient as a person against whom a hospital cannot hold a lien against the person’s personal injury claim. The lien has to be reduced to reflect write offs and adjustments to which the patient is entitled under the patient’s insurance policy. (Can’t jack up the price or balance bill the chargemaster rate just because the person ultimately footing the bill is going to be, say, an auto insurance company instead of the person’s Anthem policy.)

The hospital is also apparently barred from compromising its lien claim with the tortfeasor without also waiving, as to the patient, the remainder of the hospital fee balance secured by that lien. 

I also find this sentence troublesome, “A hospital lienholder is barred from enforcing the collection of charges covered by this chapter until the cause of action, suit, or claim accruing to the patient has been resolved by compromise, settlement, or judgment.” Now, I think what this means is that, if the hospital asserts a lien against the personal injury claim, it can’t, at the same time, try to collect the debt from the patient who received the services until the cause of action asserted by the patient against the tortfeasor has terminated. But, I can see a personal injury attorney trying to help out a client, saying that, even if the hospital hasn’t secured a lien against the judgment that, the hospital bill is still a “charge covered by this chapter” and making the hospital wait to collect — no matter how tenuous the personal injury claim might be and no matter how lackadaisical the patient/plaintiff is in pursuing the claim against the tortfeasor. You could get out of paying a bill for years by paying $150 to file suit against a marginal defendant with no money to hire a lawyer; then just kick that claim down the road as long and as often as a court will let it sit on the docket; stymying collection efforts by the hospital. 

The hospital has to assert its lien within 90 days and not later than the date of a settlement. The legislation also repeals the law concerning ambulance liens but makes it clear that existing liens are still valid and that an ambulance company is still entitled to charge and collect for its services even if it’s not entitled to secure its interest by asserting a lien. 

Sophia Voravong, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier had an article on the passage of HB 1054 which allows the Secretary of State to reject certain filings if the Secretary of State has probable cause to believe the filing is materially false or fraudulent. These include, financing statements where 1) the same name is listed as both debtor and secured party; 2) the debtor is identified as a “transmitting utility”; 3) the statement appears to be for the purpose of harassment; or 4) the instrument is forged.

The measure specifies that Secretary of State does not have a duty to investigate the legitimacy of any particular finding — thereby presumably helping it avoid lawsuits by people who are unhappy that the office has the discretion to reject filings but did not do so in a particular case. Individuals who believe that a filing was fraudulent are given the opportunity for judicial review of a filing with an award of attorney’s fees if they are successful. (I wonder if this might inhibit filing by legitimately secured parties for fear of lawsuits or counterclaims if/when the transaction goes bad.)

I do not see anything that gives a filer who has a filing rejected any explicit appeal options. But, maybe that’s elsewhere in the statute or can be accomplished by a suit for injunctive relief.

The Journal & Courier story points out that the goal of the legislation is to curtail nonsense and abusive filings by “sovereign citizens.” (See, e.g. my Redemption Song post from three years ago with discussion of one flavor of these nutjobs and their misguided attempts at using legal word salad because they don’t like complying with their obligations.)

Sophia Voravong, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier had an article on the passage of HB 1054 which allows the Secretary of State to reject certain filings if the Secretary of State has probable cause to believe the filing is materially false or fraudulent. These include, financing statements where 1) the same name is listed as both debtor and secured party; 2) the debtor is identified as a “transmitting utility”; 3) the statement appears to be for the purpose of harassment; or 4) the instrument is forged.

The measure specifies that Secretary of State does not have a duty to investigate the legitimacy of any particular finding — thereby presumably helping it avoid lawsuits by people who are unhappy that the office has the discretion to reject filings but did not do so in a particular case. Individuals who believe that a filing was fraudulent are given the opportunity for judicial review of a filing with an award of attorney’s fees if they are successful. (I wonder if this might inhibit filing by legitimately secured parties for fear of lawsuits or counterclaims if/when the transaction goes bad.)

I do not see anything that gives a filer who has a filing rejected any explicit appeal options. But, maybe that’s elsewhere in the statute or can be accomplished by a suit for injunctive relief.

The Journal & Courier story points out that the goal of the legislation is to curtail nonsense and abusive filings by “sovereign citizens.” (See, e.g. my Redemption Song post from three years ago with discussion of one flavor of these nutjobs and their misguided attempts at using legal word salad because they don’t like complying with their obligations.)

https://www.masson.us/blog/9330/

Eric Bradner, writing for the Evansville Courier Press has an article entitled After Rockport bill’s passage, developers say project will die. It’s another one of Bradner’s impressive series of articles on the Rockport project. The project started moving a couple of years ago when the Indiana Finance Authority entered into a contract (with Leucadia / Indiana Gasification, I think) that would provide financial incentives for the development of a coal gasification plant and lock ratepayers into a paying a particular price for the resulting gas. If prices go above that locked in rate, then the ratepayers win. If not, they lose. The shale boom has people thinking that, in all likelihood, the deal would have ratepayers overpaying for their gas for the next 30 years. In addition, there are environmental concerns about using coal. The contract is the subject of an ongoing legal dispute.

The General Assembly just passed SB 494 which requires the IURC to review the contract unless the Indiana Supreme Court affirms the IURC’s order of November 22, 2011 in its entirety. Under the new review, the IURC would have to take into consideration the synthetic natural gas market and whether the contract is likely to save ratepayers money and whether risk from price volatility is adequately allocated between the producer and the ratepayers.

According to Bradner’s article, the developers say that the new regulations mean the project is dead. The battle is one of those odd bedfellows kind of deals – developers, coal interests, and unions on one hand versus Vectren, business, consumer, and environmental groups on the other.