Health Care Surrogate Designation
Portia B. Scott, J.D., L.L.M. • June 1, 2021

A common tool for planning for disaster.

No one likes to consider the possibility that she ever may not be able to make informed health care decisions for herself. Yet, there are times when that may be exactly what happens. The inability to make health care decisions may only be temporary, but they also may be permanent.


This is not the same as just making poor decisions for yourself. It is when you actually cannot make a decision.


For instances, you are driving along, obeying the laws of the road and are, nonetheless, involved in an accident which leaves you unconscious and injured. When the paramedics arrive, they do not need anybody’s permission to provide life-saving services. This is an emergency and that is exactly for which these professionals are trained and valued so much in our society.


However, after been taken into life-saving surgery, the physician notices another problem in its infancy. Very easily, the physician could stop this problem from further developing and becoming a much bigger issue in a few weeks. You, obviously, cannot give consent to the physician to deal with it now and, without someone appointed by you to make this decision, the physician may not do anything but the emergency surgery.


Another example is the patient, not involved in an accident this time, has had a series of strokes which renders him incapable of making the decision. A healthcare provider notices a slow growing skin cancer. The preferred treatment is immediate removal of the offensive cancer for it will continue to grow and will, eventually result is significant danger. However, right now, it is not an emergency under any definition.


If you have executed a Health Care Surrogate Designation (a “health power of attorney”) your designated choice can make these decisions for you, following what they believe would be your wishes. So, if the patient is going to recover from the strokes and is getting proper medications, the Surrogate would probably decide the skin cancer should and may be removed. 


Merely executing the document is not enough. The Surrogate must be informed of your choice and be given a copy. A copy should be provided to your primary health care provider as well as the hospital where you are most likely to be taken. 


The paper, though, should not be considered as a replace for a face-to-face conversation with your Surrogate about your wishes or you primary health care provider about who you have chosen. 


The Surrogate will also be authorized, according to the Statutes, to sign for your admission or transfer from one health care center to another.


The Surrogate takes on NO financial responsibility for you though.

 

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MY MOTHER, THE GRAMMAR TEACHER, WOULD BE SO PROUD: We Have Our Own "Comma" Case

By Portia B. Scott, J.D., L.L.M. • July 22, 2026
One of the most absurd things for law students to grasp in that all-important first year, is the idea of what can be considered "ambiguous." (Ambiguity is "an uncertainty of meaning or intention, as in a contractual term or statutory provision.") If language is deemed "ambiguous," what happens next depends on where this ambiguity is found. The ambiguity can be subject to interpretation of a Court - if it is in a statute. If the Court has to use interpretation, there are several tools they can use to derive meaning and intent from the writers of the statute. This search for "Legislative intent" is sometimes easy if there is a part of the statute stating specifically what the Legislature was trying to do. Without that, however, judges will look at what the plain and simple language would mean. If that does not help, then they can look at the surrounding language, the other terms, what might be excluded, what would make the language harmonious with the other laws on the topic... All kinds of factors are examined to determine what the law is trying to say. However, if the ambiguity is found in a contract, the options are different and depend on whether the ambiguity is an obvious mistake ("Art is the Buyer" and then, later "The Buyer, Bert" is written in the same contract) or whether it is a more sneaky ambiguity. Here is where the comma comes into play. The Tariff of 1872 misplaced a comma, resulting in fruits not being subject to the tax. The tariff was trying to say that fruits and fruit plants would be subject to the tariff, but, by placing a comma where it did not belong, fruits become tax free and only fruit-bearing plants were subject to the Tariff. Another is a case where there would be no overtime payments for work done for "...drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution" of foods. Because there was no comma between "shipment" and "distribution," the Court found it questionable if "shipment and distribution" were one joint act or two separate ones. The result? Workers got their overtime payments. Now, we have a case, decided July 22, 2026 by our appellate court, that a comma found between "construed according to the laws of the State of Florida" and "with venue in Collier County," created an ambiguity allowing venue to be set in another County (Martin). The comma controlled and there is an ambiguity, allowing the action to be filed in Martin County, rather than Collier. The benefits of filing in one county verses another, well, that would be an entirely different article.  Just remember: Watch those punctuation marks folks! Ambiguities may be found everywhere!