Fieldhouse v. Public Health Trust of Dade County

• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: HATCHETT; ENGLAND
• Citation: Fieldhouse v. Public Health Trust of Dade County, 374 So.2d 476 (Fla. 1979)
• Decision Date: 14 June 1979
• Docket Number: No. 55021,55021
• Parties: Charlotte FIELDHOUSE, et ux., Appellants, v. The PUBLIC HEALTH TRUST OF DADE COUNTY, Florida, etc., Appellee.

Page 476

374 So.2d 476

Charlotte FIELDHOUSE, et ux., Appellants, v. The PUBLIC HEALTH TRUST OF DADE COUNTY, Florida, etc., Appellee.

No. 55021.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 14, 1979.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 21, 1979.

Lester C. Wisotsky, of Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., Miami, for appellants.

Stuart Simon, County Atty., and J. Elizabeth Middlebrooks and Jack M. Sobel, Asst. County Attys., Janet Reno, State's Atty., and Milton Robbins, Asst. State's Atty., and Brian Brattebo, Miami, for appellee.

HATCHETT, Justice.

This cause is before the court on direct appeal from an order entered in the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida, upholding the constitutionality of section 708.10, Florida Statutes (1977). We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(1), Florida Constitution. We affirm the ruling of the trial court.

Respondent, Public Health Trust of Dade County, Florida, operates Jackson Memorial Hospital. The Trust brought an action against petitioners, Charlotte and Edmond Fieldhouse, husband and wife, and Liberty National Insurance Company, a foreign corporation, to collect unpaid hospital bills incurred due to the treatment of Charlotte Fieldhouse. In Count II of that complaint, a claim was made against Edmond Fieldhouse based solely on his obligation to supply the necessities of his wife.

In their answer, the Fieldhouses asserted affirmative defenses and counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment that the action against Edmond Fieldhouse was unconstitutional. Their specific claim was that section 708.10, Florida Statutes, violated article I, section 2, and article X, section 5 of the Florida Constitution, as well as the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, when interpreted in light of the common law duty of a husband to support his wife, because the statute enables a creditor of the wife to bring a direct action against her husband for necessities, while a wife has no corresponding legal responsibility to her husband or his creditors for the husband's necessities.

Article X, section 5, Florida Constitution, provides: "There shall be no distinction between married women and married men in the holding, control, disposition, or encumbering of their property, both real and personal."

Article I, section 2, Florida Constitution, affirms that "All natural persons are equal before the law." The fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any state from depriving ". . . any person of . . . the equal protection of the laws."

Chapter 708, Florida Statutes, is entitled the Married Women's Property Act, and provides generally that married women shall have the same rights to own property, make contracts, and sue and be sued as those enjoyed by an unmarried woman. Section 10 of that act states Inter-alia : "This law shall not be construed as: (1) Relieving a husband from any duty of supporting and maintaining his wife and children." The trial judge upheld the constitutionality of the statute by stating This court holds that F.S. 708.10 and the common law duty of a husband...