Rowe v. Department of Mental Hygiene

• Decision Date: 10 October 1967
• Docket Number: No. 524,524
• Parties: Phyllis N. ROWE v. DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HYGIENE of the State of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 542

247 Md. 542

233 A.2d 769

Phyllis N. ROWE v. DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HYGIENE of the State of Maryland.

No. 524.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 10, 1967.

Harry D. Hughes, Odenton (Collins & Hughes, Odenton, on the brief), for appellant.

Edward R. Jeunett, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen. (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellee.

Before HAMMOND, C. J., HORNEY, MARBURY, OPPENHEIMER, and McWILLIAMS, JJ., and IRVINE H. RUTLEDGE, Special Judge.

IRVINE H. RUTLEDGE, Special Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment for $2,681.54 rendered against Phyllis N. Rowe, the appellant, for her husband's medical care and maintenance while he was confined at Spring Grove State Hospital, and later at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital.

Mrs. Rowe's husband, Willis Rowe, was indicted for murder in June of 1958. In November of 1958, as a result of a pre-trial medical examination, upon motion of his attorney, he was committed to Spring Grove State Hospital until his recovery. In January 1960 he was transferred to Clifton T. Perkins State Hospital and remained there until 1962 when he was released to stand trial.

In 1963 a jury found him sane at the time of the murder and guilty in the second degree; it also found him insane at the time of his trial. On appeal from that conviction the Court of Appeals struck out the conviction of murder and remanded the case, staying the proceedings and committing the defendant to a mental institution until he should recover his reason. Rowe v. State, 234 Md. 295, 199 A.2d 785 (1964).

Under authority of Section 4 and Section 5 of Article 59 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, the Division of Reimbursements of the Department of Mental Hygiene investigated the financial condition of the defendant to determine her ability to pay the costs of her husband's care and maintenance while at the hospital, set the rate at the maximum permissible under the statute, and upon her refusal to pay, filed suit and recovered a judgment for $2,681.54.

Section 1 and Section 3 of Article 59 of the Code (1957) provide that the State of Maryland shall be charged with the duty of maintaining insane persons without sufficient means to pay for their own maintenance who have no relatives or other persons legally chargeable with his or her support. Section 4 of Article 59 provides, in part:

'No person shall be deemed entitled to the benefit of §§ 1 and 3 of this article who shall possess or be entitled to receive sufficient income for his or her maintenance and support as a patient in any home, retreat or hospital for the insane of this State, or who has relatives or others legally chargeable with his or her support, or who are able to pay for the maintenance and support of the said person as a patient at any retreat or hospital for the insane of this State.'

Section 5 of Article 59 provides, in part:

'The Department of Mental Hygiene shall investigate the financial condition of all such persons and also the financial conditions of their relatives or other persons legally chargeable with their maintenance and support, in order to determine, in each case, the ability of any such person, or of his or her relatives or other persons legally chargeable with his or her maintenance or support, to make payment, in whole or in part, for the maintenance and support of such person while an inmate of any such institution.'

Further evidence of the Department's right to specify who shall pay can be found in the wording of Section 5 where it continues:

'The Department of Mental Hygiene shall make and issue an order specifying therein the amount of such payments so to be made, and the times when the same are to be made and shall have the power to require the relatives of any such person or others legally chargeable with his or her maintenance and support to pay the amount so specified to be made, and at the times so determined, and further from time to time may modify or change the terms thereof, as circumstances may justify.'

Section 5 also states that:

'It is the intent of §§ 4, 5, and 6 that a husband may be liable for the support of a wife while she is an inmate of any such institution; a wife, for a husband; a father or mother, or both, for a son or daughter; and a son or daughter, or both, for a father or mother; * * *.'

The appeal in this case is based on the contention that Section 4 and Section 5 of Article 59 are unconstitutional. The appellant argues that she is being deprived of her property without due process of law, or contrary to the Law of the Land as set forth in Article 23 of the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of Maryland, and for other reasons.

At early common law a woman's personal property acquired during coverture became her husband's and was liable for his debts. To a large extent Married Women's Acts have abrogated the common law. The Maryland Constitution of 1851, Article III, Section 38 provided:

'The General Assembly shall pass laws necessary to protect the property of the wife, from the debts of the husband during her life, and for securing the same to her issue after her death.'

The Maryland Constitution of 1867, our present law, provides, Article III, Section 43:

'The property of the wife shall be protected from the debts of the husband.'

Section 1 of Article 45 of the Annotated Code of Maryland has implemented the constitutional provision.

Ordinarily a married woman's separate property, both real and personal, is beyond the reach of her husband's creditors, to the same extent as though she had never married, and, in the absence of fraud on creditors, property acquired by a married woman as part of her separate estate is not subject to the husband's debts notwithstanding it was purchased by her with money given to her by her husband. Warner v. Dove, 33 Md. 579 (1870). See also Bishop v. Safe Dep. & Tr. Co., 170 Md. 615, 185 A. 335 (1936).

In Kerner v. Eastern Dispensary and Casualty Hospital, 210 Md. 375, 123 A.2d 333, 60 A.L.R.2d 1 (1956), a suit in which the facts were the converse to those in the instant case, a hospital sued a...