Hamlin Co. v. Sadler

• Decision Date: 23 August 1949
• Docket Number: 9031
• Citation: 73 S.D. 56,38 N.W.2d 879
• Parties: IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF PETER SADLER, DECEASED. HAMLIN COUNTY, Respondent, v. ANNA SADLER, Administratrix, Appellant.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

73 SD 56, 38 NW2d 879 (1949)

IN THE MATTER OF THE

ESTATE OF PETER SADLER, DECEASED.

HAMLIN COUNTY,

Respondent,

v. ANNA SADLER,

Administratrix,

Appellant.

South Dakota Supreme Court

Appeal from Circuit Court, Hamlin County, SD

Hon. W. W. Knight, Judge

#9031—Reversed

Andrew E. Foley, Edward P. Gribbin, Edwin G. Brown Jr., Watertown, SD

Attorneys for Defendant and Appellant.

Ralph W. Arneson, Hamlin County State’s Attorney

F. J. Benthin, Hayti, SD

Attorneys for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Opinion Filed Aug 23, 1949

SMITH, Presiding Judge.

Except for an interval of a few months, Peter Sadler was a patient in Yankton State Hospital, pursuant to a commitment by the insanity board of Hamlin County, from March 5, 1896 until his death January 27, 1945. In this proceeding Hamlin County seeks reimbursement for its statutory expenditures for the maintenance and treatment of deceased at the state hospital. The claim of the county was disallowed in part by the administratrix, but was allowed in full by the county court. On appeal to the circuit court the order of the county court was affirmed. The administratrix has appealed. The issue on appeal deals solely with the propriety of the allowance of reimbursement for county expenditures made prior to July 1, 1913 in the principal sum of $3,325.87. A background of legislative history and a review of some of our decisions is essential to an understanding of the contentions of the parties.

The policy adopted when the state hospital was established was that all residents of the Territory committed thereto should “receive their board, tuition and treatment free of charge.” § 248, Compiled Laws of 1887. But by Ch. 79, Laws of 1891, the expense of the care and keep of a patient was made a charge upon the county sending such patient to the hospital. This provision as amended has been carried forward as SDC 30.0213. By Ch. 98, Laws of 1895, it was provided: “The amount incurred by any county of this state for treatment and maintenance of any insane person in the hospital for the insane shall be a charge against the estate of such insane person. ...” This provision was carried forward as § 544, Political Code, Revised Codes of 1903, and was construed by this court in Minnehaha County v. Boyce, 30 SD 226, 138 NW 287. It was held that the word “estate” was employed in a limited sense as referring to the estate of a deceased person, and that therefore no cause of action accrued under the statute until after the death of the insane patient. This decision was filed in October 1912. The legislature which assembled the following January repealed the section construed by that decision and enacted Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, providing that the amount incurred by any county for the treatment and maintenance of any insane person in the hospital for the insane “shall be a charge against the property and estate of such insane person, both during the lifetime and after the death of such person.” (Emphasis supplied.) This provision has been carried forward in our statutes as SDC 30.0216.

Thereafter In re Thompson’s Estate, 50 SD 499, 210 NW 738, it was held (1) that the liability of the insane person to the county is quasi-contractual, cf. Meade County v. Welch, 34 SD 348, 148 NW 601, and (2) that by reason of the quoted amendment contained in Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, a cause of action for reimbursement accrues to the county during the lifetime of the insane person, which cause of action is subject to the bar of the six-year statute of limitations. Cf. SDC 33.0232.

Thereafter, by amendment of § 10087, Rev. Code 1919, dealing with the expenses of certain members of the insanity board, by Ch. 208, § 8, Laws of 1923, and by the subsequent 1939 revision thereof, the following provision was included in SDC 30.0120, viz., “The statute of limitations upon any claim of the county or state for expense or care of insane shall not commence to run until the death of the insane patient, but action may be begun at any time during the life of the insane person.” Cf. McKenna v. Roberts County, 72 SD 250, 32 NW2d 687.

The final legislative act came in 1939. By Ch. 118, Laws of 1939, SDC 30.0216, the successor to Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, supra, was amended to read:

“The amount incurred by any county in this state for treatment and maintenance of any insane person in a hospital for the insane shall be a charge against the property and estate of such insane person, both during the lifetime and after the death of such person, and until paid shall not be affected by any statute of limitations; ... .” (Emphasis supplied.)”

In McKenna v. Roberts County, supra, the liability of the estate of an insane person to reimburse the county for expenditures made for his care at the state hospital prior to July 1, 1913, was in question, and the contention was made that the item was barred under the rule of In re Thompson’s Estate, supra, and that the amendment of Ch. 118, Laws of 1939, should not be applied retroactively to render the claim enforceable. This court followed In re Thompson’s Estate and held the item barred by the six-year statute.

We revert to the case at bar. The circuit court reached its decision before the opinion in McKenna v. Roberts County, supra, was filed. Predicated on L. D. Powell Co. v. Larkin, 52 SD 245, 217 NW 200, and Clark County v. Bergstresser, 63 SD 121, 257 NW 44, establishing the rule that the statute of limitations of this state creates a bar to the remedy and does not destroy the right or cause of action, and on the rule of Campbell v. Holt, 115 US 620, 6 SCt 209, 29 LEd 483, lately reaffirmed in Chase Securities Corporation v. Donaldson, 325 US 304, 65 SCt 1137, 89 LEd 1628, the circuit court held that Ch. 118, Laws of 1939, supra, lifted the bar of the statute of limitations and rendered enforceable the claim of the county for expenditures prior to July 1, 1913 which claim theretofore had been considered unenforceable under the rule of In re Thompson’s Estate, supra.

The administratrix, of course, points to McKenna v. Roberts County and to In re Thompson’s Estate, supra, as the basis of her contention that the trial court erred in so ruling. In response the county advances several propositions. It first suggests that the holding of In re Thompson’s Estate should be reconsidered in the light of two contentions not therein considered, viz., (a) that to construe Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, as rendering the claims of the county for expenditures made prior to July 1, 1913, enforceable during the lifetime of the insane person is to give it retrospective application, bringing it into collision with § 12, art. VI of the constitution of South Dakota which provides, “No ... law impairing the obligation of contracts ... shall be passed” and thus rendering it invalid, and (b) the legislature did not intend Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, to operate retrospectively. In either of these views, it will be readily observed that the right of the county for reimbursement for expenditures prior to July 1, 1913, would not have accrued until the death of Peter Sadler under the rule of Minnehaha County v. Boyce, supra, and hence would never have been subject to the bar of the statute of limitations As an alternative proposition the county contends that the holding of McKenna v. Roberts County should be reconsidered and the reasoning and ruling of the learned judge of the circuit court adopted.

The contention that to construe Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, as having retrospective force would render it repugnant to § 12, art. VI, proscribing laws impairing the obligation of contracts cannot be maintained. As indicated in Meade County v. Welsh, 34 SD 348, 148 NW 601, the liability to reimburse a county for expenditures made for the treatment and maintenance of one of its insane citizens committed to the state hospital rests upon an implied contract, sometimes called a quasi contract or constructive contract.

Although we indulge the fiction of a contract for remedial purposes, such a liability is not consensual: both the commitment and the liability are imposed by law. Such implied or quasi contracts, as distinguished from contracts implied in fact, are not contracts within the impairment clause of our constitution. State ex rel. Sharpe v. Smith, 58 SD 22, 234 NW 764; State v. Romme, 93 Conn. 571, 107 A. 519; In re Idleman’s Commitment, 146 Or. 13, 27 P2d 305; 16 CJS, Constitutional Law, § 344, page 792; 28 AmJur, Insane and Other Incompetent Persons, § 44, p. 684; 16 CJS, Constitutional Law, § 285, page 717.

It was assumed without question or discussion In re Thompson’s Estate, supra, that the legislature intended by Ch. 313, Laws of 1913, to render enforceable during lifetime of an insane patient his liability to reimburse the county for expenditures theretofore made for his treatment and maintenance at the state hospital. Although McKenna v. Roberts County, supra, and many sessions of the legislature have intervened, until now that assumption has not been questioned.

Without laboring the point, we will assume that a measure which operates to accelerate the maturity of the county’s claim for antecedent expenditures is retrospective in character. Cf. Clark Implement Co. v. Wadden, 34 SD 550, 149 NW 424, LRA 1915C, 414.

The conclusion of the county that the legislature did not intend the act to so operate rests upon the presumption indulged by the courts that statutes are intended to operate prospectively. Cf. Federal Farm Mortgage Corporation v. Noel, 66 SD 481, 285 NW 871 and American Investment Co. v. County of Beadle, 5 SD 410, 59 NW 212. A lucid statement of this rule of construction appears in an early New York case in words as follows:

“It is always to be presumed that a law was intended, as its legitimate office, to furnish a rule of future action to be applied to cases arising subsequent to its enactment. A law is never to have retroactive effect...