In re Estate of Wilson
Decision Date | 29 May 1980 |
Docket Number | No. 79-40.,79-40. |
Citation | 416 A.2d 228 |
Parties | In re ESTATE of Woodrow WILSON. Johnnie WILSON et al., Appellants, v. William M. THORNTON et al., Appellees. |
Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Charles C. Parsons, Washington, D.C., for appellants.
William M. Thornton, Washington, D.C., for appellees.
Before NEWMAN, Chief Judge, and KELLY and MACK, Associate Judges.
Appellants, the decedent's heirs-at-law, contested his purported will on the basis that he lacked testamentary capacity at the time of the will's execution.1 The trial court, relying on the physician-patient privilege, D.C. Code 1973, § 14-307(a), excluded medical evidence and testimony proffered by appellants, and directed a verdict for the appellees. The issue before us on appeal is whether the trial court erred in excluding the proffered evidence and testimony; more specifically, we must decide in the case of a will contest, who is to be considered the decedent's "legal representatives" for the purpose of waiving the physician-patient privilege.
In Part I of this opinion we set forth the pertinent facts and trial proceedings. In Part II, we discuss the existing case law on the issue before us in this jurisdiction. In Part III we analyze the appellants' contentions and conclude that the heirs-at-law are the "legal representatives" of the decedent for purposes of D.C. Code 1973, § 14-307(a). Finally, in Part IV we summarize our findings and conclusions. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
Woodrow Wilson, the decedent, entered the Veterans' Administration Hospital on May 4, 1977, suffering from cancer of the bladder. While there he received massive daily doses of dilaudid, a morphine derivative, to relieve his extensive and debilitating pain. On June 15, 1977, he executed a paper writing which purported to be his Last Will and Testament. William Thornton, the appellee, drafted the purported will in which he was named as decedent's executor. The will was witnessed by Thornton's law partner and by his secretary.
The will left everything to Wilson's uncle, Frederick Douglas Cannon, and to his cousin, Ernestine Stevenson; it made no mention of Wilson's heirs-at-law, namely, his estranged wife, his daughter Cynthia Chambers, and his granddaughter Yvonne Holmes (the child of his deceased daughter, Evelyn).2
Woodrow Wilson died on July 22, 1977 and shortly thereafter his nominated executor, William Thornton, offered the will for probate and applied for letters testamentary. Before Thornton was qualified as executor, the heirs-at-law filed a timely complaint to contest the validity of the will. Prior to trial, counsel for the heirs obtained the complete medical records of decedent's final hospitalization and had them reviewed by two physicians, who concluded that Wilson lacked testamentary capacity at the time of the alleged execution of the will. The heirs then filed a Memorandum of Law in support of their complaint and attached a copy of the decedent's medication charts, an affidavit signed by an expert in medicine and pharmocology, and waivers of the physician-patient privilege which each of the heirs had executed.
At trial, the executor — who was still eo nomine, not de jure — objected to the introduction of the hospital records and of the medical testimony, claiming that the heirs did not have the right to waive the privilege established by D.C. Code 1973, § 14-307(a). The appellants/heirs produced evidence of Wilson's affection for his daughter and granddaughter, but the trial court ruled that only a qualified executor or administrator could waive the physician-patient privilege in a will contest. The court effectively held that, until letters testamentary have been issued, no one can claim to be the "legal representative" of the decedent, with the accompanying power to waive the privilege. The trial court grounded its conclusion on two previous opinions which the same judge had authored, neither of which has ever come before this court for review.3 As a result of the court's ruling, all of the appellants' medical evidence was excluded and a verdict was directed in favor of the appellees. This appeal followed.
The issue before us is whether the heirsat-law of a deceased testator are his "legal representatives" for the purpose of waiving the physician-patient privilege, D.C. Code 1973, § 14-307(a), in a will contest between the heirs and the nominated executor, legatees, and devisees. D.C. Code 1973, § 14-307(a) states in pertinent part:
In the Federal courts in the District of Columbia and District of Columbia courts a physician or surgeon may not be permitted, without the consent of the person afflicted, or of his legal representative, to disclose any information, confidential in its nature, that he has acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity and that was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity, whether the information was obtained from the patient or from his family or from the person or persons in charge of him. [Emphasis added.]
The legislative history of this statute and its predecessor statutes in the District of Columbia is totally devoid of reference to the congressional intent as to the meaning of the term "legal representative". The sole legislative history addresses the need to create by statute a physician-patient privilege for the District of Columbia. S. 981, 54th Cong., 1st Sess. (1896); H.R. 2647, 54th Cong., 1st Sess., 57 Cong.Rec. 289, 5012, 5068-71 (1896) ( ); S.Rep. No. 481, 54th Cong., 1st Sess. 1 (1896); H.R.Rep. No. 1677, 54th Cong., 1st Sess. (1896).
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit considered the issue before us in an early case, Hutchins v. Hutchins, 48 App.D.C. 495 (1919). In Hutchins, the decedent left a will naming his two sons, Walter and Lee, and one Charles L. Frailey, as executors. Lee Hutchins filed a complaint to contest the validity of the will and at trial attempted to introduce the testimony of the decedent's attending physician concerning decedent's mental capacity at the time of the execution of the purported will. Walter Hutchins and Charles Frailey, defending the will in their capacity as nominated executors, objected to the introduction of the testimony. The court ruled that:
This statute [predecessor to § 14-307], in broad terms, renders a physician an incompetent witness in the District of Columbia to testify concerning confidential information acquired while attending a patient in his professional capacity. To this sweeping rule there is a single exception. Such testimony may be received with the consent of the patient or his legal representatives. The exception is not in this case. [Id. at 500.]
It is clear that Lee Hutchins was challenging the will in his capacity as decedent's heirs-at-law, and not as decedent's nominated executor, for a nominated executor is under a duty to defend the purported will. Tuohy v. Hanlon, 18 App.D.C. 225 (1901). Therefore, the court can only be understood to have ruled that an heir is not a decedent's "legal representative" for the purpose of waiving the physician-patient privilege. Stanford v. American Security & Trust Co., 60 App.D.C. 380, 55 F.2d 542 (1931), relied exclusively on Hutchins in reaching an identical result.
The Hutchins court failed to articulate any rationale for its holding that an heir is not the "legal representative" of the decedent for purposes of § 14-307, nor did it offer any citations or other authority in support of its assertion. Over the years, the rule in Hutchins has been called seriously into question.
First, it has now been clearly established that where the heirs stand in the patient's shoes and there is no controversy between the executor and the heirs, the united heirs are the patient's "legal representatives" and may exercise the privilege as against a stranger.4 Calhoun v. Jacobs, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 29, 141 F.2d 729 (1944) ( ); Thomas v. Doyle, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 95, 187 F.2d 207 (1950) ( ).
Second, the court in Calhoun v. Jacobs, supra at 30 n. 5, 141 F.2d at 730 n. 5, appeared to indicate that it would be willing to reexamine the question of the relative rights of heirs and a nominated executor in a controversy such as the one we have before us today. Furthermore, the court in Calhoun, supra at 29 & n. 2, 141 F.2d at 729 & n. 2, cited approvingly decisions from five jurisdictions that held that the heirs of a patient are "permitted to exercise the patient's privilege of waiver in order to enforce a substantive right which descended from the patient to his heirs." Id. at 29, 141 F.2d at 729 (footnote omitted).5
Third, the United States Court of Appeals for this Circuit specifically addressed the issue of the interpretation to be given the phrase "legal representative" in several cases, involving the Survival Act, D.C. Code 1973, § 12-101,6 decided after Hutchins. Of particular interest is the case of Thomas v. Doyle, supra, where the court, in holding that a broad definition of the term should be applied, stated that
The term "legal representative" does not possess a fixed and narrow meaning in the law. This court has construed its use in another section of the D.C. Code [present § 14-307], to encompass both executors or administrators and heirs where there is no controversy between them. That Congress did not intend to limit the right to bring an action under § 12-101 [the Survival Statute] only to executors...
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