Montgomery County v. Gupton

• Decision Date: 25 May 1897
• Citation: 139 Mo. 303,40 S.W. 1094
• Parties: MONTGOMERY COUNTY v. GUPTON.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

40 S.W. 1094

139 Mo. 303

MONTGOMERY COUNTY v. GUPTON.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

May 25, 1897.

In banc. Appeal from circuit court, Montgomery county; E. M. Hughes, Judge. Action by Montgomery county against the administrator of the estate of Ellen Collins, deceased. Plaintiff had judgment, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

For opinion in division, see 39 S. W. 447. Solomon Hughlett, for appellant. Jas. F. Ball, Robt, Shackleford, and Claude R. Ball, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

The opinion heretofore delivered in the First division of the court by BRACE, J., is now adopted as the opinion of the court in banc, and accordingly the judgment of the circuit court is reversed as directed in said opinion.

BARCLAY, C. J. (specially concurring).

According to the modern common law, the estate of a lunatic is presumptively liable to answer for necessaries furnished for his support; but the inference of an obligation may be broken down by evidence of facts indicating a different intention of the person supplying such necessaries. Rhodes v. Rhodes (1890) 41 Ch. Div. 94. The law of Missouri permits a county to grant aid in the form of necessaries to an insane person from the fund for relief of the poor, even though such person is not wholly destitute of means. Rev. St. 1889, §§ 499, 511, 5558. Where such relief is granted by the county court, it seems to me (after an examination of all our statutory law on the subject) that the orders for such relief amount to a finding that the person aided is within the class which the statutes permit to be so aided. We must presume, in the absence of any contrary showing, that the county court acted correctly. It was competent for that court to grant to Mrs. Collins aid (in the form of necessary attention at the state asylum), notwithstanding she had a small estate of about $400. The action of the court in giving such relief cannot be collaterally attacked after the death of the beneficiary, so as to turn the charity into an obligation, in the absence of any special circumstances of fraud or other ground that might possibly furnish an exception to the rule stated. Section 5557 gives an action to the county against certain relatives of the party assisted, despite the gratuitous character of the relief to the party himself. Those relatives could be held, even when the estate of the party might not be, where there has been an exercise of the discretionary power of the court towards the party as an object of charity. In my...