Dudley, In re

• Citation: 239 Cal.App.2d 401,48 Cal.Rptr. 790
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Decision Date: 18 January 1966
• Parties: In the Matter of Dorothy Lois DUDLEY, a Mentally Deficient Person. COUNTY OF ALAMEDA, Appellant, v. Fannie W. PETTEBONE, Respondent. Civ. 22407.

Page 790

48 Cal.Rptr. 790

239 Cal.App.2d 401

In the Matter of Dorothy Lois DUDLEY, a Mentally Deficient Person.

COUNTY OF ALAMEDA, Appellant, v. Fannie W. PETTEBONE, Respondent.

Civ. 22407.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Jan. 18, 1966.

Hearing Denied March 16, 1966.

J. F. Coakley, Dist. Atty. of Alameda County, Ben H. Zuppan, William A. Hirst, Deputy Dist. Attys., Oakland, for appellant.

Barrett, Ferenz & Trapp, Walter S. Ferenz, Oakland, for respondent.

SIMS, Justice.

The County of Alameda has appealed from an order of the superior court which vacated that portion of an order committing respondent's daughter to the Department of Mental Hygiene for placement in Sonoma State Home as a mentally deficient person, which provided that respondent pay $20 per month to the county on account of the daughter's care, support and maintenance while she was so committed.

Respondent contended below and the superior court found that the provisions of section 5260 of the Welfare and Institutions Code ¹ are unconstitutional for the same reasons the provisions of section 6650 of that code were found to be unconstitutional in Dept. of Mental Hygiene v. Kirchner (1964) 60 Cal.2d 716, 36 Cal.Rptr. 488, 388 P.2d 720 (cert. granted (1964) 379 U.S. 811, 85 S.Ct. 39, 13 L.Ed.2d 26, remanded for further proceedings (1965) 380 U.S. 194, 85 S.Ct. 871, 13 L.Ed.2d 753, and reiterated solely on state constitutional grounds (1965) 62 Cal.2d 586, 43 Cal.Rptr. 329, 400 P.2d 321).

For the reasons hereinafter set forth it is concluded that the decision in Kirchner does not control the statute in question and its application to the factual situation of this case; and that the law properly requires contribution, within his ability to pay, from a person otherwise responsible for the care of a mentally deficient person.

The Facts

The proceedings in which this controversy arises were antedated by similar proceedings which were commenced by a petition filed by respondent, pursuant to the provisions of chapter 2, part 1, division VI (§§ 5250-5265 ²) of the Welfare and Institutions Code. In this petition, executed April 8, 1940, petitioner alleged that her daughter, then aged eighteen, was in need of closer supervision than she could give her; that she had evaded supervision, left her home and was criminally assaulted, and had been classified as an imbecile by a psychologist. Respondent sought an order committing her daughter to Sonoma State Home, and providing for the payment of the expenses of the proceeding and of the delivery and care of her daughter in the institution as provided in the aforementioned chapter. At a hearing on April 12, 1940, the court found that respondent's daughter was a feeble-minded person, and ordered that she be committed to a state home and that respondent pay $15 each month to the treasurer of Alameda County for the costs of the care, support and maintenance of her daughter while committed to and confined in the state home.

The confinement pursuant to the former commitment apparently terminated at some time prior to August 12, 1952. On that date respondent executed a new petition which contained the following recitals: that she was charged with the support of her daughter; that her daughter was a mentally deficient person; ³ that in 1940 she had been found to be mentally defective and had been committed to and accepted by Sonoma State Home; that she was in need of constant supervision for her own protection as well as the protection of the neighbors in that she had suicidal tendencies; that medical and psychological services which had been sought concurred in the diagnosis of 'Mental Deficiency'; that the mother was urging her reinstitutionalization as a mental defective; and that the Sonoma State Home concurred and was willing to accept her immediately. After proceedings regularly taken to that end, the court on August 18, 1952 signed its 'Findings of Fact, Order for Payment of Support, and Commitment,' wherein and whereby the daughter was found to be a mentally deficient person and committed to Sonoma State Home, and respondent was ordered to pay to the treasurer of the County of Alameda the sum of $20 each month for the costs of the care, support and maintenance of her daughter while so committed and confined.

On March 26, 1964, respondent filed her petition to vacate that portion of the order requiring her to make the monthly payments on the ground that it was null, void and unconstitutional. After a hearing, the court on May 21, 1964 made and filed its written order granting respondent the relief she sought, and this appeal ensued.

Respondent categorically states: 'The Kirchner case, supra, has determined that a parent, guardian, or person charged with the support of mentally ill persons cannot be required by the State to contribute to the support and maintenance of a mentally ill patient committed to a State institution.' She asserts that there is no legal or factual difference between mental illness or insanity, on the one hand, and mental deficiency or mental retardation on the other, and expressly points out that the public concern and the interests of society, not only in protecting itself, but in ameliorating the effects of the condition are the same in both instances. From these premises she asks this court to follow the lead of the lower court and rule that section 5260 is unconstitutional.

The decision in the Kirchner case under any interpretation is not as broad as respondent asserts and it must be examined with more particularity to determine its applicability to the facts presented by this case. Furthermore, although the legal and factual incidents of mental illness and mental deficiency may be similar in many respects, it does not necessarily follow that the Legislature cannot provide a different system of care for persons suffering from the latter than it provides for persons suffering from the former, and in so doing, provide for a different method of financing such care.

Examination of the provisions of the statute, section 6650, ⁴ upon which the state sought to predicate liability in Kirchner, reflects that by its terms it purports to impose a joint and several liability upon the persons and estates of the classes named therein for the care, support and maintenance of a mentally ill person or an inebriate in a state institution. ⁵ In Kirchner the state sought to collect from the estate of a deceased daughter the costs of the care, support, maintenance and medical attention which had been supplied to her mother as a mentally ill patient, despite the fact that the patient had a personal estate of $11,000. The opinion presents the issue as follows: 'defendant directly challenges the right of a state to statutorily impose liability upon, and collect from, one adult for the cost of supporting another adult whom the state had committed to one of its hospitals for the mentally ill or insane.' (60 Cal.2d at p. 718, 36 Cal.Rptr. at p. 489, 388 P.2d at p. 721, fn. omitted.) In the course of sustaining this challenge the court relies on Department of Mental Hygiene v. Hawley (1963) 59 Cal.2d 247, 28 Cal.Rptr. 718, 379 P.2d 22, wherein recovery was denied in an action under the provisions of section 6650 to recover from a father for the costs of the care, maintenance and support of his son who had been committed to a state hospital for the mentally ill under the provisions of section 1368 et seq. of the Penal Code because of his then present insanity. The opinion recites: 'Whether the commitment is incidental to an alleged violation of a penal statute, as in Hawley, or is essentially a civil commitment as in the instant case, the purposes of confinement and treatment or care in either case encompass the protection of society from the confined person, and his own protection and possible reclamation as a productive member of the body politic. Hence the cost of maintaining the state institution, including provision of adequate care for its inmates, cannot be arbitrarily charged to one class in the society; such assessment violates the equal protection clause.' (60 Cal.2d at p. 720, 36 Cal.Rptr. at p. 490, 388 P.2d at p. 722.) The decision reviews cases which had sustained so-called support statutes, and analyzes cases which it states have recognized that neither family relationship, nor blood relationship, nor presence of nor lack of wealth in an individual could furnish, in and of itself, a basis for a valid class discrimination. Note is taken of the social evolution which has brought expanded recognition of the parens patriae principle, of the solicitude for the preservation of the estate of the incompetent for his use in the event of his discharge (see § 6655), and of the failure of section 6650 to give a 'servient' relative a right of recoupment from assets of the patient. The opinion concludes: '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.' (60 Cal.2d at pp. 722-723, 36 Cal.Rptr. at p. 492, 388 P.2d at p. 724.) On remand from the United States Supreme Court the State Supreme Court stated its 'understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, and sections 11 and 21 of article I of the California Constitution, provide generally equivalent but independent protections in their respective jurisdictions,' and concluded that in any event the state constitutional provisions ⁶ independently required the result promulgated in the earlier opinion. (62 Cal.2d at p. 588, 43 Cal.Rptr. at p. 330, 400 P.2d at p. 322.)

If Kirchner stands for the proposition that when the state, in the exercise of its promotion of the general welfare, commits a person either for the protection of...