Department of Mental Hygiene v. Bank of America

The appeal is on the following stipulation of facts: The deceased, Herbert J. Kramer, was the father of Elizabeth Kramer, a mentally ill adult person. In February 1952, on the petition of the Health Officer of the City of Liver-more, Elizabeth was committed to Agnews State Hospital. In July 1955, Elizabeth was transferred to Mendocino State Hospital and has remained a patient there since that date. Elizabeth is without means to pay all or any part of the reasonable charge for her care and maintenance in these state institutions. Her father died in December 1966, leaving a net probate estate, over which he had a power of testamentary disposition, of about $200,000. The department filed a verified creditor’s claim, which was rejected. Thereafter, the department filed this action for $11,847.32 for the care and maintenance of Elizabeth from February 1, 1964, to December 1966, at the above mentioned state institutions for the treatment of mentally ill persons. This action by stipulation is based solely on Welfare and Institutions Code section 6650.

Section 6650 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, at the time the instant action was filed (Feb. 1968), provided: “The husband, wife, father, mother, or children of a mentally ill person or inebriate, the estates of such persons, and the guardian and administrator of the estate of such mentally ill person or inebriate, shall cause him to be properly and suitably cared for and maintained, and shall pay the costs and charges of his transportation to a state institution for the mentally ill or inebriates. The husband, wife, father, mother, or children of a mentally ill person or inebriate, and the administrators of their estates, and the estate of such mentally ill person or inebriate, shall be liable for his care, support, and maintenance in a state institution of which he is a patient. The liability of such persons and estates shall be a joint and several liability, and such liability shall exist whether the mentally ill person or inebriate has become a patient of a state institution pursuant to the provisions of this code or pursuant to the provisions of Sections 1026, 1368, 1369, 1370, and 1372 of the Penal Code.” (Italics added.)

This statute, as it read prior to the 1965 amendment (explained in the footnote below)^[1] was interpreted in Kirchner, supra, opinion clarified 62

In Kirchner, supra, the Supreme Court indicated that its prior decision in Department of Mental Hygiene v. Hawley, 59 Cal.2d 247 [ 28 Cal.Rptr. 718 , 379 P.2d 22 ], was dispositive of the question presented. Hawley, like the instant case, involved an assertion by the department of the liability of a father for the care, support and maintenance of an adult son committed to a state institution as insane and unable to stand trial for an alleged crime. There is no indication in the facts recited in Hawley that the adult son had any funds of his own. Significantly, Kirchner found the court’s reasoning in Hawley dispositive, regardless of whether or not a patient had funds of his own. Accordingly, this fact alone cannot be relied upon by the department to distinguish the instant case from Kirchner.

Kirchner also distinguished and overruled the court’s prior decision in Department of Mental Hygiene v. McGilvery, 50 Cal.2d 742 [ 329 P.2d 689 ], In that case, the facts were essentially identical to the facts in the instant case, namely, the estate of the deceased parent had funds to pay the charges for the care and maintenance of an adult child. Further, in Kirchner, the court said at page 721: “It is established in this state that the mere presence of wealth or lack thereof in an individual citizen cannot be the basis for valid class discrimination,” and concluded at page 722: “Section 6650 by its terms imposes absolute liability upon, and does not even purport to vest in, the servient relatives any right of control over, or to recoup from, the assets of the patient. A statute obviously violates the equal protection clause if it selects one particular class of persons for a species of taxation and no rational basis supports such classification. [Citations.] Such a concept for the state’s taking of a free man’s property manifestly denies him equal protection of the law.”

In clarifying the Kirchner decision, pursuant to the remand from the

In Guardianship of Hicks, 228 Cal.App.2d 629 [ 39 Cal.Rptr. 698 ], and Estate of Preston, 243 Cal.App.2d 803 [ 52 Cal.Rptr. 790 ], the liability was asserted and upheld against the patients’ own estate or funds. This, likewise, was a matter expressly recognized and exempted from the Kirchner holding.

In In re Dudley, 239 Cal.App.2d 401 [ 48 Cal.Rptr. 790 ], the parent personally had her mentally deficient child committed and was then ordered to contribute to the care, support and maintenance of the child. This court (Division One) in upholding the liability, expressly recognized that the Legislature had established a different system for the care, support and maintenance of mentally deficient persons than the mentally ill persons involved in the instant case and Kirchner. Dudley also emphasized, at page 408, the distinction between the statute there involved, Welfare and Institutions Code section 5260, which merely prescribed a procedure to enforce pre-existing liability, and section 6650, which imposes liability.

The department further attempts to argue that the liability sought to be imposed under section 6650 is proper because of the statutory obligation prescribed in Civil Code section 206, set forth in full in the footnote below.^[3] Under the reasoning of Kirchner emphasizing that it is the general public responsibility alone to maintain adult relatives, other than spouses, in mental institutions, Civil Code section 206, as applied to the instant case, is subject to the same constitutional infirmity as is Welfare and Institutions Code section 6650.

Finally, the department cites Beach v. Government of Dist. of Columbia, 320 F.2d 790 [ 116 App. D.C. 68 ]. In that case, the circuit court held that imposing support liability on a father for an adult child did not violate due process as it was proper to attach “legal significance to the natural bonds of consanguinity” and enforce a moral obligation. Beach was decided before Kirchner, wherein our Supreme Court expressly rejected this approach by noting that the cost of maintaining state institutions and their inmates cannot be arbitrarily charged to one class in the society, but is a public cost borne by all (see also the excellent discussion of this aspect of Kirchner in tenBroek, California’s Dual System of Family Law, Part III, 17 Stan.L.Rev. 614 at pp. 640-643).