Medical Center Hospital of VT v. Lorrain

Medical Center Hospital of Vermont v. Lorrain  (94-669); 165 Vt 12; 675 A.2d 1326

[Opinion Filed 08-Mar-1996]

       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.


                                     No. 94-669


Medical Center Hospital of Vermont                     Supreme Court

                                                       On Appeal from
    v.                                                 Chittenden Superior Court

Derek Lorrain and Patricia Lorrain                     October Term, 1995


Matthew I. Katz (summary judgment) and
Linda Levitt (final judgment), JJ.

David W. M. Conard of Portnow, Little & Cicchetti, Burlington, for
  plaintiff-appellee

Judith L. Dillon of Lisman & Lisman, Burlington, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


       MORSE, J.   Defendant Patricia Lorrain, whose husband Derek received
  medical services from plaintiff Medical Center Hospital of Vermont (MCHV),
  appeals the superior court's grant of summary judgment to MCHV, with
  respect to her, in this collection action against the Lorrains.  We
  reverse.

       MCHV provided care to Derek Lorrain for a work-related injury.  Upon
  admission to the hospital, he agreed in writing to pay for uninsured or
  unreimbursed fees resulting from his care. MCHV did not require his wife to
  sign a payment guarantee.  When payment of the $7000 bill was not
  forthcoming from either Mr. Lorrain or his workers' compensation providers,
  MCHV brought a collection action against the Lorrains.   Patricia Lorrain
  opposed MCHV's motion for summary judgment, arguing that, under 15 V.S.A. §
  66, a wife is not liable for the sole debts of her husband.  MCHV countered
  that there is an exception to this general rule for necessary medical
  services.  The superior court agreed and adopted the reasoning of a New
  Jersey Supreme Court decision that, faced with an equal protection
  challenge, extended the common-law

 

  necessaries doctrine to wives as well as husbands.  See Jersey Shore
  Medical Center, Inc. v. Estate of Baum, 417 A.2d 1003, 1005 (N.J. 1980).

                                   I.

       Patricia Lorrain contends for the first time in her reply brief that
  MCHV has no standing to raise its equal protection argument.  While
  generally one may not assert the rights of others, and one must be a member
  of the class discriminated against to claim that a law denies equal
  protection, see Lague, Inc. v. State, 136 Vt. 413, 416, 392 A.2d 942, 944
  (1978), these prudential rules may be relaxed in the appropriate
  circumstances.  See 13 C. Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure §
  3531.9, at 542-43 (2d ed. 1984).  When the parties are properly in court,
  as they are here, the question is not whether to consider a particular
  party's challenge to a law but rather to define the range of theories that
  the party may rely on in support of the challenge.  In such a case, a party
  may assert the rights of others as long as the party is potentially
  aggrieved by the law, the trial court has entertained the relevant
  constitutional challenge, and the parties have not resisted an
  authoritative constitutional determination.  See Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 193-94, 197 (1976) (vendor has standing to raise equal-protection
  challenge to gender-based state liquor law).

       The necessaries doctrine creates an obligation directly between the
  husband and the creditor.  Schilling v. Bedford Cty. Memorial Hosp., 303 S.E.2d 905, 907 (Va. 1983). Accordingly, as the court stated in Jersey
  Shore, when the creditor seeks payment of necessary expenses from the wife,
  and an equal protection challenge to the necessaries doctrine arises, "the
  creditor is an appropriate party to assert the husband's rights."  417 A.2d 
  at 1006-07.  Here, both parties have real tangible interests in the
  outcome, and both sides of the issue are squarely presented for review. 
  Thus, there is no reason to deny standing, and we decline to do so.

                                  II.

       Having rejected appellant's standing argument, we must consider the
  continued validity

 

  of the necessaries doctrine in the context of an equal protection
  challenge.(FN1)  The doctrine originated in English common law over three
  centuries ago when married women had no property or contractual rights and
  their husbands controlled their financial affairs.  Note, The Unnecessary
  Doctrine of Necessaries, 82 Mich. L. Rev. 1767, 1767 (1984).  Essentially,
  it makes husbands liable for necessities -- such as food, clothing,
  shelter, and medical care -- that are provided to their wives.  See Wing v.
  Hurlburt, 15 Vt. 607, 613-14 (1843).  The primary purpose of the doctrine
  was to assure that dependent wives received support from neglectful
  husbands.  Note, supra, at 1770.

       Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, states, including Vermont,
  began to enact statutes granting married women property and contractual
  rights independent of their husbands.  See 15 V.S.A. §§ 61-69.  Among the
  Vermont statutes is a provision declaring that a wife's separate property
  is not subject to her husband's debts.  See 15 V.S.A. § 66.  None of these
  statutes explicitly overruled the necessaries doctrine, and MCHV argues
  that because the doctrine remains viable today as an exception to the
  general rule set forth in § 66, it should be extended to wives as well as
  husbands.

       There is no question that, when applied only to men, the necessaries
  doctrine offends the principle of equal protection under the law.  The
  courts are unanimous on this point, which is undisputed by the parties. 
  See Landmark Medical Center v. Gauthier, 635 A.2d 1145, 1150 (R.I. 1994). 
  The issue, rather, is whether to remedy the equal protection violation by
  extending the doctrine to both wives and husbands or by abolishing it
  altogether.  We opt for the latter remedy, notwithstanding that the
  majority of courts considering the issue have elected to make the

 

  doctrine reciprocal to wives and husbands.  See id. (surveying case law on
  issue).

       We take this position for the following reasons.  First, the
  circumstances that led to the emergence of the necessaries doctrine no
  longer exist.  Irrespective of their marital status, women have property
  and contractual rights equal to men, and thus the legal existence of
  married women is no longer merged into that of their husbands.  See R. & E.
  Builders, Inc. v. Chandler, 144 Vt. 302, 304, 476 A.2d 540, 541 (1984). 
  Second, because the husband's liability under the doctrine had substantial
  limitations, the doctrine never accomplished its purported purpose -- to be
  an effective support mechanism for neglected wives.  Among the doctrine's
  limitations were that (1) the items provided to the wife had to be
  necessities, as defined by the family's social position; (2) the husband
  had to have the ability to pay for the items; (3) the wife had to be either
  living with her husband or living apart from him through no fault of her
  own; and (4) the creditor had to have relied on the husband's, not the
  wife's, credit.  See Note, supra, at 1772-74; 1 H. Clark, The Law of
  Domestic Relations in the United States § 7.3, at 446-48 (2d ed. 1987). In
  short, it was difficult for the creditor to know, before going to court,
  whether the doctrine would apply.

       Some courts continue to tout the ameliorative effects on needy spouses
  or on the institution of marriage that will ensue from extending the
  doctrine to husbands and wives, but such rhetoric has been best described
  as "`Orwellian newspeak.'"  See Bartrom v. Adjustment Bureau, Inc., 618 N.E.2d 1, 7 (Ind. 1993) (quoting Marshfield Clinic v. Discher, 314 N.W.2d 326, 338 (Wis. 1982)) (Abrahamson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
  part).  In truth, extension of the doctrine serves creditors' rights, not
  spousal support rights.  Indeed, studies indicate that in deciding whether
  to extend credit, creditors give little weight to a married woman's support
  rights, but are wary of her potential liability for her husband's
  purchases; thus, making the necessaries doctrine reciprocal to husbands and
  wives may even inhibit the granting of credit to creditworthy women.  See
  id. (discussing congressional studies for Equal Credit Opportunity Act
  (ECOA)); Note, supra, at 1781-83 (same).  Further, extension of the
  doctrine

 

  would entail a radical departure from the underlying reasons and implicit
  assumptions upon which the doctrine's duties were based at common law.  We
  decline to expand an antiquated support doctrine in an effort to create a
  family-expense law or a creditors' remedy.

       Virtually all of the necessaries doctrine cases concern hospitals or
  clinics seeking to collect debts resulting from medical services rendered
  to spouses, often during a last illness.  The public policy issues
  surrounding these circumstances are complex, and are best taken up by the
  Legislature in family-expense statutes, creditors' rights laws, or even
  comprehensive health care legislation.  The Legislature, not this Court, is
  better equipped to assemble the facts and determine the appropriate
  remedies in an arena fraught with social policy involving the law of
  property, the institution of marriage, and the distribution of the costs of
  health care expenses. See Connor v. Southwest Florida Regional Medical
  Ctr., No. 84670, 1995 WL 752303, at *2, *3 (Fla. Dec. 21, 1995)
  (constitutional considerations demand equality between sexes, and yet
  judiciary is branch of government least capable of receiving public input
  and resolving broad public policy questions concerning liability of spouses
  for each other's medical services; accordingly, common-law necessaries
  doctrine is abrogated, and Legislature is left to determine policy of state
  in this area); Condore v. Prince George's Cty., 425 A.2d 1011, 1019 (Md.
  1981) (accord); Schilling, 303 S.E.2d  at 908 (accord).

       We recognize that, given this state's marital property law, medical
  providers may have legitimate concerns regarding collecting debts from
  uninsured or underinsured married persons in Vermont.  See, e.g., Bellows
  Falls Trust Co. v. Gibbs, 148 Vt. 633, 633, 534 A.2d 210, 211 (1987) (mem.)
  (when spouses hold property as tenants by entirety, neither spouse has
  share that can be disposed of or encumbered without joinder of other
  spouse); Beacon Milling Co. v. Larose, 138 Vt. 457, 460, 418 A.2d 32, 33-34
  (1980) (spouses may hold personal property, including bank accounts, as
  tenants by entirety; such property is protected by 15 V.S.A. § 66 from
  husband's sole creditors).  Although these cases have not been challenged
  and are not in issue here, they suggest that married persons could evade
  payment of legitimate debts.

 

  Nevertheless, we reiterate that if indeed problems exist, they should be
  addressed in a comprehensive way by the Legislature, not piecemeal by this
  Court in cases that fail to provide us with the information necessary to
  determine how best to allocate financial responsibility for medical debts
  incurred by married persons.  In the meantime, medical providers are not
  without the means to at least shore up their financial position.  See Note,
  supra, at 1781 n.64, 1791 (because creditors such as hospitals and doctors
  extend "incidental" credit, under ECOA they may inquire about applicant's
  marital status and require spouse's signature even if applicant is
  creditworthy).

       Reversed.


                                 FOR THE COURT:



                                 _______________________________________
                                 Associate Justice




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                                  Footnotes


FN1.  In Hitchcock Clinic, Inc. v. Mackie, 160 Vt. 610, 611, 648 A.2d 817, 819 (1993) (mem.), where we upheld the superior court's summary
  judgment order denying a clinic recovery from a wife for medical services
  provided to the wife's husband during his last illness, we left the
  necessaries doctrine undisturbed, and declined the clinic's request that we
  extend the doctrine to impose liability upon wives as well as husbands.  In
  that case, however, the clinic's equal protection claim was waived.  Id.
  n.*.