Delehanty v. Kahn

• Decision Date: 30 May 1969
• Citation: 446 S.W.2d 553
• Parties: Francis B. DELEHANTY, Jr., as Committee for Virginia Kahn, Appellant, v. Virginia KAHN et al., Appellees.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 553

446 S.W.2d 553

Francis B. DELEHANTY, Jr., as Committee for Virginia Kahn Appellant, v. Virginia KAHN et al., Appellees.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 30, 1969.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 28, 1969.

Lawrence S. Grauman, Frank E. Haddad, Jr., Louisville, for appellant.

William F. Burbank, Ben B. Hardy, Louisville, for appellees.

WADDILL, Commissioner.

In question is the correctness of the judgment entered in this action by the Jefferson Circuit Court which, in effect, holds that Kentucky courts are not required to give conclusive effect to a former adjudication of mental incompetency by another state. The appeal stems from the court's refusal to authorize appellant to take physical custody of his alleged incompetent ward for the purpose of transporting her from Kentucky to New York. Also questioned is the sum allowed the guardian ad litem.

The events leading to this controversy which are disclosed by the pleadings, exhibits and evidentiary material filed in connection with appellant's motion for summary judgment began on May 28, 1956 when Roger Kahn, a resident of the state of New York, filed a petition in the Supreme Court of the state of New York seeking to have his teen-age daughter, Virginia Kahn, adjudicated an incompetent. On June 27, 1956, Virginia Kahn was adjudicated to be of unsound mind and as a consequence thereof incompetent to manage herself and her affairs. F. B. Delehanty, Jr., was appointed and qualified as the committee of her person and property. Soon thereafter he placed her in a private New York mental institution and proceeded to administer a substantial trust fund that had been established for her benefit.

Thereafter on August 4, 1967, Virginia Kahn fled from her place of incarceration without her committee's consent and came to Louisville, Kentucky where she is presently located. When her committee learned of her whereabouts she had been arrested and committed to the Jefferson County Jail. On October 2, 1967 she was interviewed by Doctor Ethel O'Brien, a psychiatrist, who was apparently employed for this purpose by the Jefferson County Health Department. Doctor O'Brien's handwritten notes concerning her interview with Virginia Kahn reflect, in pertinent part, that Virginia Kahn talks intelligently, rationally and coherently and is without psychosis, but has a behavior adjustment problem.

On October 3, 1967, Mrs. M. P. Ryan, an employee of the Department of Mental Health of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, filed her affidavit in the Jefferson Circuit Court pursuant to KRS 210.340 which stated that Virginia Kahn had escaped from the Craighouse Hospital in New York and that the authorities there requested her return. There was also filed a copy of a telegram from Doctor Bertram Pepper, Associate Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health of New York, which stated that the New York Department of Mental Health would authorize her return to New York under the terms of the Interstate Mental Health Compact. It also requested that Kentucky furnish her necessary hospitalization. Thereupon Honorable J. Paul Keith, Jr., as Judge of the Jefferson Circuit Court, entered an order which authorized and directed Kentucky Central State Hospital to detain Virginia Kahn pursuant to the request of the Department of Mental Health of the State of New York. However, on October 4, 1967, when two psychiatrists at the Kentucky Central State Hospital filed a report in Jefferson Circuit Court showing that they had examined Virginia Kahn upon her admittance to the hospital and had found that she was not mentally incompetent and was not in need of hospitalization, Judge Keith entered an order revoking his order of October 3, 1967 and directed the officials in charge of the Kentucky Central State Hospital to immediately release her.

Thereafter, when F. B. Delehanty, Jr., was unable to persuade Virginia Kahn to return to New York, he filed this action in the Jefferson Circuit Court on October 27, 1967, setting forth that on June 28, 1956, she had been adjudged by the Supreme Court of the State of New York as mentally incompetent and that he had been appointed as committee of her person and property. He alleged that she had been placed by him in a private New York mental institution for treatment and that she had on August 4, 1967, without his consent, left the institution and had come to Louisville, Kentucky. He sought a judgment authorizing him to take custody of his ward, Virginia Kahn, and to return her to New York so that he could properly execute the terms of his trust. He asserted that Kentucky is required by the Federal Constitution to give full faith and credit to the New York judgment which had declared Virginia Kahn to be mentally incompetent and which had appointed him as committee of her person and property. An authenticated copy of the New York judgment was filed as an exhibit to the complaint and it reveals that Virginia Kahn was adjudged to be of unsound mind on June 28, 1956 by the Supreme Court of the State of New York and that Delehanty was appointed the committee of her person and property.

The action was defended by counsel employed by Virginia Kahn and also by her guardian ad litem. The answers filed in her behalf not only place in issue her mental incompetency but affirmatively allege that she is presently mentally competent, that she does not need supervision and that she is unwilling to return to New York to be again incarcerated in a mental institution. The answers controvert the averments in the complaint that the New York judgment of incompetency is now in effect and that the New York judgment is enforceable in Kentucky. It is further affirmatively alleged that, since Virginia Kahn has been in Kentucky, her mental capacity has been established by an order entered in the Jefferson Circuit Court on October 4, 1967 and that such adjudication constitutes res judicata of the issue of her mental competency.

Counsel for Delehanty moved for a summary judgment, contending that the Jefferson Circuit Court is required to give full faith and credit to the former New York decree of incompetency and therefore, Delehanty is entitled to prevail as...