SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
1. K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 22-4612 requires certain government agencies to pay the medical expenses incurred by persons in their custody.
2. K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 22-4612 conveys the legislature’s intent to hold government agencies liable for medical costs incurred for the treatment people receive while in their custody. This statute, in conjunction with K.S.A. 22-4613, is rooted in the principle that government agencies have a duty to treat people in their care humanely.
3. The test for determining whether a government agency has an obligation to pay a person’s medical expenses is whether a person is in the agency’s custody when the decision was made to obtain medical treatment.
4. A formal arrest is not always necessary to show a person is in custody. Instead, whether a person is in custody turns on the facts of each case.
5. A party seeking summary judgment must show that there are no disputed issues of material fact and that judgment may therefore be entered as a matter of law—essentially, that there is nothing the fact-finder could decide that would change the outcome. The district court’s task does not change simply because all parties have filed summaryjudgment motions on stipulated facts. Each motion must be separately and independently reviewed under these summary-judgment standards.
6. Under K.S.A. 8-2104(d), when a person is stopped by law enforcement for felonious traffic offenses, law enforcement has a legal duty to arrest the offender—to take the offender into custody and bring him or her before a judge. The officer conducting the stop has no discretion whether to take the offender into custody.
Read the full opinion.