prompt opportunity challenge in Florida

1986We agree with HRS for two basic reasons: First, no statute or administrative rule, during the applicable time frame here involved, required HRS to publish notice of a party's request for an administrative hearing concerning a CON decision. [4] Second, *382 as a practical matter, we do not consider the notice of preliminary denial "so remote from the agency action as to be ineffectual as a vehicle for affording" appellants "a prompt opportunity to challenge disputed issues of material fact in a 120.57 hearing." General Development Utilities, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environment Regulation,

1986As we observed in General Development Utilities, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, 417 So.2d 1068, 1070 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982): [S]imply providing a point of entry is not enough if the point of entry is so remote from the agency action as to be ineffectual as a vehicle for affording a party whose substantial interests are or will be affected by agency action a prompt opportunity to challenge disputed issues of material fact in a 120.57 hearing.

1987See NME Hospitals, Inc. v. Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services, 492 So.2d 379 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985). *1011 As required in Capeletti Brothers, Inc. v. State, Department of Transportation, 362 So.2d 346, 348 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), the substantially affected person must be provided with a "clear point of entry, within a specified time period after some recognizable event in investigatory or other freeform proceedings, to formal or informal proceedings under Section 120.57." Moreover, that point of entry must not be so remote from the agency action as to be ineffectual as a vehicle for affo

1982We pointed out in Capeletti Brothers, Inc. v. State Department of Transportation, 362 So.2d 346, 348 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) that “an agency must grant affected parties a clear point of entry, within a specified time after some recognizable event in investigatory or other free-form proceedings, to formal or informal proceedings under section 120.57.” Now we find it necessary to add a postscript: simply providing a point of entry is not enough if the point of entry is so remote from the agency action as to be ineffectual as a vehicle for affording a party whose substantial interests are or will be

1987See NME Hospitals, Inc. v. Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services, 492 So.2d 379 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985). *1011 As required in Capeletti Brothers, Inc. v. State, Department of Transportation, 362 So.2d 346, 348 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), the substantially affected person must be provided with a "clear point of entry, within a specified time period after some recognizable event in investigatory or other freeform proceedings, to formal or informal proceedings under Section 120.57." Moreover, that point of entry must not be so remote from the agency action as to be ineffectual as a vehicle for affo