Eastate of Messner

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: WIENER
• Citation: 190 Cal.App.3d 818,235 Cal.Rptr. 495
• Parties: In re ESTATE OF Hazel B. MESSNER, Deceased. Peter RANK, as Director, etc., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William R. THURSTON, as Executor, etc., Defendant and Appellant. D003900.
• Decision Date: 25 March 1987

Page 495

235 Cal.Rptr. 495 190 Cal.App.3d 818 In re ESTATE OF Hazel B. MESSNER, Deceased.
Peter RANK, as Director, etc., Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
William R. THURSTON, as Executor, etc., Defendant and Appellant. D003900. Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, California. March 25, 1987.
Review Denied June 25, 1987.

[190 Cal.App.3d 819]

Page 496

Don L. Harrington for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Charlton G. Holland, Asst. Atty. Gen., Anne S. Pressman and Richard A. Spector, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

[190 Cal.App.3d 820] WIENER, Acting Presiding Justice.

This appeal by defendant William R. Thurston, as executor of the estate of Hazel B. Messner, from the $45,019.24 judgment in favor of plaintiff Peter Rank, director of the Department of Health Services (Department), presents the identical issue decided in Department of Health Services v. Fontes (1985) 169 Cal.App.3d 301, 215 Cal.Rptr. 14. Fontes held that "Welfare and Institutions Code section 14009.5 ¹ authorizes respondent Department of Health Services to claim reimbursement for Medi-Cal benefits from the estate of a Medi-Cal recipient, when the recipient died after the effective date of the statute, but the benefits were received before the effective date of the statute." (Id. at p. 303, 215 Cal.Rptr. 14.) As we shall explain, although we agree with Fontes that section 14009.5 must be applied prospectively, we conclude prospective application of the statute means the Department may be reimbursed for only those Medi-Cal benefits paid after the effective date of the statute. Accordingly, we reduce the $45,019.24 judgment to $12,639.52 representing the Medi-Cal services rendered after June 28, 1981, the date section 14009.5 became effective. (Stats. 1981, ch. 102, § 101, p. 738; amended by Stats. 1981, ch. 1163, § 3, pp. 4654-4655, eff. Oct. 2, 1981.)

Page 497

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Following Messner's death on December 7, 1982, the Department timely filed a creditor's claim against her estate for $45,019.24 representing the total amount paid to various health care providers who had treated her under the Medi-Cal program from January 1, 1977, until the date of her death. The claim tracked the wording of section 14009.5 and alleged that reimbursement was authorized pursuant to that section since the Medi-Cal services rendered on Messner's behalf occurred after she was 65 and that she had died without leaving a surviving spouse or any surviving children under age 21 or any surviving children who were blind or disabled within the meaning of the Social Security Act. The claim was rejected. The Department successfully moved for summary judgment. This appeal ensued.

190 Cal.App.3d 821

DISCUSSION

Since the facts are not in dispute, the threshold question is whether the Legislature intended section 14009.5 to be applied retroactively.

It is an established canon of statutory interpretation that statutes must be applied prospectively unless the Legislature clearly intended a retroactive application. (Aetna Cas. & Surety Co. v. Ind. Acc. Com. (1947) 30 Cal.2d 388, 393, 182 P.2d 159.) In this case the Department first suggested that the legislative intent expressing retroactive application could be inferred from the fact that section 14009.5 was enacted as an urgency measure at a time when the State of California was in a financial crisis and deep cuts in the Medi-Cal budget were proposed. Even though we had serious doubts that California's fiscal problems would have been materially alleviated by obtaining reimbursement from the small and probably impecunious class of Medi-Cal recipients defined by section 14009.5, we were nonetheless intrigued by the argument. The argument implicitly recognized that only through retroactive application could the Department obtain reimbursement of those benefits paid before the statute was enacted. At oral argument the Department's counsel may have appreciated the self-defeating aspect of his contention because he conceded that the Legislature intended section 14009.5's prospective application. This concession is hardly dramatic in light of the legislative history of this provision.

Section 14009.5 was enacted as part of a chapter amending, adding, and repealing over 160 statutes in 10 different codes. Many of these statutes were in the Welfare and Institutions Code and were directed to developing pilot programs to save money, i.e., prospective savings. In this light, any force to a retroactivity argument based on the urgency of the legislation becomes ethereal. Moreover, we cannot overlook the Legislature's silence on this issue. Had the Legislature wanted section 14009.5 to be applied retroactively, it could have easily so stated. (See Perry v. Heavenly Valley (1985) 163 Cal.App.3d 495, 500-501, 209 Cal.Rptr. 771.) Lacking any meaningful rationale for retroactivity, we are unwilling to equate the Legislature's silence with the expression of clear legislative intent essential for retroactivity. Thus we partially agree with Fontes--section 14009.5 must be given prospective application only. (Department of Health Services v. Fontes, supra, 169 Cal.App.3d at p. 304, 215 Cal.Rptr. 14.) Our disagreement with Fontes is in its resolution of the following question.

Fontes describes the pivotal question as "whether application of section 14009.5 to benefits received before the effective date of the statute, claimed from an estate which arose after the effective date of the statute, constitutes an unauthorized retroactive application." (Department of Health Services v. [190 Cal.App.3d 822] Fontes, supra, at p. 304, 215 Cal.Rptr. 14.) In light of Fontes' premise that section 14009.5 must be applied prospectively, we interpret this question as asking whether prospective application of the statute permits the Department to reach those benefits paid before the statute was enacted. Our redefinition of

Page 498

the question, perhaps unnecessarily pedantic, is motivated by our wish to focus on the narrow issue before us, i.e., the meaning of prospective application. This case does not present the broader, more complex question of whether it would have been constitutionally valid to apply the statute retroactively had the Legislature so intended. The resolution of this latter question requires a court to decide...