By Martin Espinoza
The Press Democrat
SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. — Sonoma County is accusing longtime ambulance provider American Medical Response of failing to meet response times and other performance metrics and refusing to pay penalties for poor performance.
The claims are made in a June 8 court filing by the county against the private ambulance company in a legal dispute in which both sides allege a breach of contract.
It’s the latest legal maneuver in an increasingly contentious dispute over who will control the county’s exclusive, lucrative ambulance contract for central Sonoma County.
“AMR is trying to get out of the contract because it has failed and refused to live up to its contractual obligations, including meeting certain response times, ambulance availability and reporting obligations, resulting in unpaid sums being owed to the County,” Tina Rivera, director of Sonoma County’s Department of Health Services, said in an email Monday.
Rivera said the court filing was a response to a lawsuit filed on March 29 by AMR, where the ambulance company contended that county actions have essentially voided the contract between the two sides. The contract runs until Jan. 15, 2024.
“Our goal with the litigation is simple: Ensure AMR lives up to its commitment to provide high-quality services throughout the term,” Rivera said. “AMR seeks to continue to provide and bill for the services, but without any accountability. This will not work.”
AMR, known locally as Sonoma Life Support, has provided exclusive service in the county’s urban core for three decades. But recently, the Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to award that contract to the Sonoma County Fire District.
AMR has promised to challenge that decision in court, arguing that the bidding process for the contract was tainted by conflict of interest and favoritism toward the fire district.
In the county’s cross-complaint, officials claim that AMR ambulances repeatedly arrive too slowly for emergency calls and has failed to pay “liquidation damages” for falling short of response time standards. Under the contract, AMR must pay "$100 per excess minute or fraction” every time it arrives late to an emergency call, with the penalty capped at $800 per call.
The county’s complaint lists more than a dozen instances where AMR arrived late on a call, including nearly 21 minutes to arrive at the scene for a high-level emergency on Aug. 6, 2022. The required response time for that call was just under 7 minutes, resulting in $800 penalty.
The county claims that AMR has incurred $465,600 in liquidated (unspecified) damages owed to the county between July 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023.
The complaint states that in “August 2022, AMR had its highest-ever monthly liquidated damages of $179,500 for a single month (more than AMR was obligated to pay for entire years previously).”
The complaint also alleges that AMR has had repeated “Level 0" ambulance response issues, a term that refers to periods where there are no ambulances available to dispatch. Among the numerous instances where AMR was at Level O, the complaint states that in November 2022 AMR had 123 instances where it had no ambulances available.
Of these, 57 were “five minutes or more, including periods of 25 minutes and 5 seconds on Nov. 11, 26 minutes and 52 seconds on Nov. 9, and 33 minutes on November 15.”
The county’s cross-complaint stems from a breach of contract lawsuit that was filed by AMR on March 29, where the company alleges that actions on the part of the county led the state to declare that AMR’s operating area territory was no longer exclusive.
AMR claims that the county failed to conduct a timely, competitive bidding process, a state requirement for exclusive ambulance operating zones.
Rivera said Monday that the legal dispute is related to “corporate-level decisions” and should not cast a shadow on the work of first responders.
“AMR’s paramedics and EMTs are our friends and neighbors, and we want and need them to stay in our communities,” she said in her email. “We are grateful for their heroic service”
AMR spokesman Jason Sorrick said the company is “not surprised” by the county’s countersuit.
“AMR remains confident that our view of the facts will carry the day in Court because our version of the case is based on documents and other indisputable evidence,” Sorrick said in an email.
In its complaint, the county argues that AMR’s claims of breach of contract are “without merit” and an attempt to continue providing ambulance services in the exclusive territory without meeting performance requirements.
Mark Heine, chief of the Sonoma County Fire District, declined to comment on the legal dispute between the county and AMR.
“If AMR and the county cannot reach an out-of-court settlement, our organization is confident that the various issues of law and fact will be fairly adjudicated in the judicial process,” Heine said.
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