In re Estate of Tanner

• Decision Date: 07 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. M2006-02640-SC-R11-CV.,M2006-02640-SC-R11-CV.
• Citation: 295 S.W.3d 610
• Parties: In re ESTATE OF Martha M. TANNER, deceased.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

295 S.W.3d 610

In re ESTATE OF Martha M. TANNER, deceased.

No. M2006-02640-SC-R11-CV.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Nashville.

February 5, 2009 Session.

October 7, 2009.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General & Reporter and L. Vincent Williams, Deputy Attorney General, for the appellant, The Tennessee Bureau of TennCare.

Helen Sfikas Rogers and Lawrence James Kamm, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Thomas Tanner.

OPINION

GARY R. WADE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., CORNELIA A. CLARK, and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., filed a concurring opinion.

The decedent, Martha M. Tanner, died intestate while a resident of a nursing facility. Nineteen months later, the Bureau of TennCare filed a complaint in the Davidson County Chancery Court seeking the appointment of an administrator of her estate. The case was transferred to the probate court, and the decedent's son, Thomas Tanner, was appointed administrator. The Bureau of TennCare then filed a claim seeking recovery of "medical assistance correctly paid" on behalf of the decedent pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 71-5-116 (1995 & Supp. 2002) and 42 United States Code section 1396p (2003 & Supp.2009). The probate court dismissed the claim as untimely, and, upon direct appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted application for permission to appeal in order to consider whether the claim is procedurally barred. Because section 71-5-116 places an obligation on the representative of an estate to obtain a waiver or release from the Bureau, the claim is not subject to a one-year statute of limitations. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, therefore, reversed, and the cause is remanded to the probate court.

Facts

On January 14, 2004, Martha M. Tanner died intestate at the age of ninety-six. During the last eleven years of her life, Ms. Tanner, a nursing home resident, received medical benefits from The Tennessee Bureau of TennCare ("Bureau") in the amount of $248,508.77. Ms. Tanner's son and heir at law, Thomas Tanner, had acted as the conservator of her estate during her later years and closed the conservatorship on June 20, 2004, some five months after her death. Ms. Tanner had an estate comprised of $2,000 cash and residential property in Davidson County. The residence, which was assessed at $123,000 for property tax purposes, had an estimated value of $167,000. Although Mr. Tanner did not initiate an administration of the estate after his mother's death, he did file a request for release with the estate recovery unit of the Bureau. After receiving the request, the Bureau responded to Mr. Tanner by letter dated November 18, 2004, which provided in pertinent part as follows:

The Department of Human Services has informed The Bureau of TennCare that your name was listed as the responsible party for Martha Tanner. Pursuant to State law TCA 71-5-116 and federal law 42 USCA Section 1396p, the State of Tennessee may have a claim for nursing home payments against the estate of Martha Tanner.

Enclosed please find a copy of Frequently Asked Questions About Estate Recovery[,] the release form and instructions for completing the release form. Please complete and return this form by December 8, 2004 to the address above....

(Emphasis added.) When Mr. Tanner neither responded to the letter nor completed and returned the release form as requested, the Bureau filed a claim in the conservatorship action. Days later, on December 20, 2004, the probate clerk rejected the claim because the proceeding had been closed.

Nothing further took place until August 17, 2005, some nineteen months after Ms. Tanner's death and nine months after the initial correspondence, when the Bureau filed a complaint in the Davidson County Chancery Court seeking the appointment of an administrator of her estate. See Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 30-1-301 to -311 (2007 & Supp.2008). The Bureau claimed that as a creditor of the estate, it was entitled to the appointment of an administrator. Monica Edwards was initially appointed administrator, but in December of 2005, after the case was transferred to a probate court, the probate court determined that the chancery court had not had subject matter jurisdiction; thus, the order appointing Edwards as administrator was set aside.

On January 19, 2006, before the appointment of an administrator by the probate court, Mr. Tanner filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the Bureau's claim was time-barred by Tennessee Code Annotated section 30-2-310(b) (2007). On March 6, 2006, the probate court entered an order appointing Mr. Tanner as administrator but denying the motion to dismiss. Shortly thereafter, in a separate order, the probate court granted the Bureau's motion to amend its complaint. On July 25, 2006, Mr. Tanner, as administrator, filed another motion to dismiss on the basis that any claim by the Bureau was untimely, having been filed more than twelve months after his mother's death. Three days later, the Bureau filed a formal claim against Ms. Tanner's estate. The probate court, however, granted the motion to dismiss, holding that the Bureau had only one year from the date of death within which to file its claim. The court observed that a claim for taxes was the only exception to the one-year statute of limitations.

On direct appeal, the Court of Appeals held that the Bureau, which had actual notice of Ms. Tanner's death within twelve months of her passing, had no statutory exemption from the limitations period as set out in Tennessee Code Annotated sections 30-2-307(a)(1) and 30-2-310(b). In its application for permission to appeal the ruling, the Bureau presented several arguments that the claim was not barred: firstly, that the period of limitations began only when (a) there was a personal representative capable of being sued and (b) there was a creditor with the present right to sue; secondly, that the Bureau was not subject to the one-year statute of limitations because it is not a "creditor" as defined by statute; thirdly, that the statutory limitation period was superseded by the terms of section 71-5-116; and, fourthly, that the proceedings below constituted an "insolvency" proceeding that is excepted from timeliness requirements by Tennessee Code Annotated section 302-501. Because of conflicting opinions by the Court of Appeals as to the applicability of the one-year statute of limitations to Bureau claims, we granted the Rule 11 application to consider the issues presented.

Standard of Review and Statutory Interpretation

The issues presented by this appeal involve the interpretation of state statutes. Statutory construction is a question of law that is reviewable on a de novo basis without any presumption of correctness. Gleaves v. Checker Cab Transit Corp., 15 S.W.3d 799, 802 (Tenn.2000); Myint v. Allstate Ins. Co., 970 S.W.2d 920, 924 (Tenn.1998). When dealing with statutory interpretation, well-defined precepts apply. Our primary objective is to carry out legislative intent without broadening or restricting the statute beyond its intended scope. Houghton v. Aramark Educ. Res., Inc., 90 S.W.3d 676, 678 (Tenn. 2002). In construing legislative enactments, we presume that every word in a statute has meaning and purpose and should be given full effect if the obvious intention of the General Assembly is not violated by so doing. In re C.K.G., 173 S.W.3d 714, 722 (Tenn.2005). When a statute is clear, we apply the plain meaning without complicating the task. Eastman Chem. Co. v. Johnson, 151 S.W.3d 503, 507 (Tenn.2004). Our obligation is simply to enforce the written language. Abels ex rel. Hunt v. Genie Indus., Inc., 202 S.W.3d 99, 102 (Tenn.2006). It is only when a statute is ambiguous that we may reference the broader statutory scheme, the history of the legislation, or other sources. Parks v. Tenn. Mun. League Risk Mgmt. Pool, 974 S.W.2d 677, 679 (Tenn.1998). Further, the language of a statute cannot be considered in a vacuum, but "should be construed, if practicable, so that its component parts are consistent and reasonable." Marsh v. Henderson, 221 Tenn. 42, 424 S.W.2d 193, 196 (1968). Any interpretation of the statute that "would render one section of the act repugnant to another" should be avoided. Tenn. Elec. Power Co. v. City of Chattanooga, 172 Tenn. 505, 114 S.W.2d 441, 444 (1937). We also must presume that the General Assembly was aware of any prior enactments at the time the legislation passed. Owens v. State, 908 S.W.2d 923, 926 (Tenn.1995).

History

In 1965, the federal government established the Medicaid program as a means of providing health coverage for low-income Americans through the use of both federal and state appropriations. See 42 U.S.C. § 1396. At that time, the federal government contributed two dollars for every dollar expended by the State of Tennessee. State ex rel. Pope v. Xantus Healthplan of Tenn., Inc., No. M2000-00120-COA-R10-CV, 2000 WL 630858, at * 1 (Tenn.Ct.App. May 17, 2000). During the period after the inception of the federal program, the states expanded Medicaid services by offering more of their own tax dollars as a means of increasing the federal contribution. See James F. Blumstein & Frank A. Sloane, Health Care Reform Through Medicaid Managed Care: Tennessee (TennCare) as a Case Study and a Paradigm, 53 Vand. L.Rev. 125, 140 (2000). In order to bolster the effectiveness of Medicaid programs while constraining costs, states adopted various procedures for controlling or recouping costs associated with the program. See Jonathan Engel, Poor People's Medicine: Medicaid and American Charity Care Since 1965, at 62 (2006) (observing that "[a]s predicted, the early state [Medicaid] programs began to run over budget within two years of their start" and describing early efforts in California and New York to deal with cost overruns). As one such cost-control mechanism, the Tennessee Medical Assistance Act of 1968 authorized ...