Boer v. University Specialty Hospital

27 A.3d 175, 421 Md. 529, 2011 Md. LEXIS 525

• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
• Decided: August 19, 2011
• Docket: 67, September Term, 2008
• Status: Published

Opinions

ALAN M. WILNER (Retired, Specially Assigned), J.

This case presents a very narrow legal issue, but one of first impression. Maryland Code, § 8-104(c) of the Estates and Trusts Article (ET) permits a creditor to file a claim against a decedent’s estate prior to the appointment of a personal representative. Because, in such a situation, no estate has yet been opened and no Orphans’ Court has therefore assumed jurisdiction, the law permits the creditor to file the claim with the register of wills in any of three counties: where the decedent was domiciled, where the decedent “resided” on the date of his or her death, or where real property or a leasehold interest in real property of the decedent is located.¹ The only legal issue before us is what is meant by “resided.”

The relevant facts are undisputed. The decedent in this case, Dorothy Faya, lived for most of her 82 years at her home in Catonsville, in Baltimore County. On November 29, 2002, when she was 81 and had been living alone for some time, she suffered a fall and was taken by ambulance to St. Agnes Hospital. She remained at St. Agnes, which is located in Baltimore City, for about three weeks, until December 21, 2002. Upon her discharge, the intent was to take Ms. Faya to a nursing home in Catonsville, but, while en route, she became unable to breathe on her own, so she was taken instead to University Specialty Hospital (USH), a licensed chronic care hospital also located in Baltimore City, and placed on artificial life support—a ventilator and a feeding tube.

With the exception of five emergency admissions to two nearby acute care hospitals, both located in Baltimore City, for brief periods—three of them for a day or less—Ms. Faya remained at USH for the next eleven months, until November 21, 2003, when she died. During her stay at USH, she remained on the ventilator and feeding tube. She was mentally competent but unable to talk.

During the first few months of her hospitalizations, Ms. Faya’s hospital and medical bills were covered by Medicare. That insurance was exhausted on March 29, 2003, however. Her daughter, Deborah Boer, was advised, and, either from Ms. Faya’s accounts or joint accounts of mother and daughter, Ms. Boer made three payments between May and November 2003, totaling $35,896. Counsel to USH attempted to work with Ms. Boer to have her mother qualify for Medicaid benefits, but, unfortunately, Ms. Faya died before that could be arranged. The outstanding balance due USH at the time of Ms. Faya’s death was $206,343.

On December 10, 2003, prior to the opening of an estate and the appointment of a personal representative, USH filed a claim with the register of wills in Baltimore City.² On February 18, 2004, Ms. Faya’s will was admitted to probate in Baltimore County and her son-in-law, John Boer, was appointed as personal representative. On October 1, 2004, USH filed a claim for $206,343—the actual amount owed—with the register of wills in Baltimore County. The personal representative denied the claim on the ground that it was not filed timely— within six months after the decedent’s death—and that the claim filed in Baltimore City, which was timely, was invalid because, in his view, Ms. Faya did not “reside” in the City at the time of her death.

After an evidentiary hearing, the Orphans’ Court for Baltimore County agreed with the personal representative and entered judgment for the estate. The court recognized that, under ET § 8-104(c), a creditor who files a claim prior to the appointment of a personal representative may file it with the register of wills in the county where the decedent “resided” at the time of her death. It acknowledged as well that, for purposes of that statute, “resided” means something different than domicile, and that a person may “reside” in a county other than that of his or her domicile. Nonetheless, the court found that the evidence did not support the conclusion that Ms. Faya “resided” in Baltimore City at the time of her death. It stated:

“Although she was hospitalized for approximately nine months, she never changed her mailing address to have her mail sent to the University Specialty Hospital nor did she have her clothes or personal possessions moved to the [hospital]. In fact, each time Decedent required emergency treatment or laboratory tests she was transferred to another hospital and discharged from [USH].³ Throughout her stay at the [USH], Decedent maintained her home at the [Catonsville property] and it was her intent to return to [the Catonsville property] if possible. As a result, this Court finds that Decedent did not ‘reside’ in Baltimore City.” USH filed an appeal to the Circuit Court for Baltimore

County, which affirmed the judgment, largely for the reasons stated by the Orphans’ Court. The Circuit Court also recognized that “resided” was not synonymous with domicile but, citing Black’s Law Dictionary, required “only bodily presence as an inhabitant of a place.” It too found, however, that “the facts of this case do not support the conclusion that the Decedent ‘resided’ at [USH].” The court based that conclusion on the facts that (1) Ms. Faya never changed her mailing address or had her clothes or personal possessions moved to USH, (2) each time she left for acute care elsewhere, she was formally discharged from USH, and (3) throughout her stay, she maintained her home in Catonsville and intended to return there if possible.

USH appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which, in an unreported opinion, reversed the judgment of the Circuit Court. The intermediate appellate court resolved the issue by applying traditional rules of statutory construction. By permitting a creditor, prior to the appointment of a personal representative, to file a claim in the county where the decedent “resided” at the time of her death, the Court concluded that the Legislature obviously intended that the claim could be filed in a place other than the decedent’s domicile and that residence “simply requires bodily presence as an inhabitant in a given place.” (quoting from T.P. Laboratories, Inc. v. Huge, 197 F.Supp. 860, 863 (D.Md.1961)). In the case at bar, the Court held, Ms. Faya’s “bodily presence as an inhabitant of a Baltimore City health facility at the time of her death” qualified her as a resident of the City when she died.

We granted the personal representative’s petition for certiorari to review the Court of Special Appeals decision and, for the reasons that follow, shall affirm it.

As a preface, we are not in accord with any implication from the Court of Special Appeals opinion that the mere fact that a person is bodily present in a particular county at the time of his or her death means, for purposes of ET § 8-104(c), that the person then “resided” in that county. If that were so, a person who dies while on vacation, or on a business trip, or during a short-term stay in a hospital could be regarded as “residing” in the county where the hotel, hospital, or other facility is located, and we do not believe that, in enacting § 8-104(c), the Legislature contemplated or intended such a result. Residence means something more than that, but to determine what, we need to look at some legislative history.

Prior to 1969, the Maryland law, in the words of the Governor’s Commission to Review and Revise the Testamentary Law of Maryland, “prescribe^] a number of detailed and archaic rules with respect to the manner of presenting claims.” Second Report of the Commission, at 125 (1968). The only section of the then-current Code dealing specifically with the actual presentation of claims required that they “be exhibited against an administrator.” Md.Code, Art. 93, § 119 (1957, 1964 Repl.Vo.). To remedy that collection of detailed and archaic rules, and many others as well, the Commission recommended, and the Legislature enacted, a comprehensive, substantive rewriting of Art. 93, which then comprised the State probate code. Section 8-104, as enacted in 1969, provided alternative means of presenting a claim—either directly to the personal representative or by filing it -with the register of wills.

There was, however, a specific time range within which the claim had to be filed. It could not be filed prior to the appointment of the personal representative, nor, with limited exceptions, could it validly be filed more than six months after that appointment. See ET §§ 8-101(a) and 8-103(a).⁴ Because the claim had to be filed after the personal representative was appointed, it necessarily had to be filed in the county where the estate was being administered.

That remained the law until 1989. The 1989 law that made the change was enacted as an emergency bill in order to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v. Pope, 485 U.S. 478, 108 S.Ct. 1340, 99 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988), which invalidated, on due process grounds, the statutes of limitations or repose, like that in Maryland, which cut off claims after a period commencing with the opening of a judicial proceeding. The Title to the bill (1989 Md. Laws, ch. 496) made clear that the principal purpose of the bill was to “alter[ ] certain time limitations on the presentation of creditor’s claims against a decedent’s estate,” which it did principally by commencing the period of repose, alternatively, from the date of the decedent’s death (initially nine months, later reduced to six months), or the date the creditor received actual notice (two months).

The amendment to § 8-104(c), which enacted the language at issue here, must be read in light of the overall purpose of the law. By commencing the period of repose from the date of the decedent’s death, the statute (§ 8-103), for the first time, permitted creditors to file claims prior to the appointment of a personal representative and, in that circumstance, to file the claim with the register of wills in any of three possible counties—where the decedent was domiciled, where the decedent resided at the time of death, or where the decedent owned or leased real property. No one of these options was, or is, preferred over another. It is the creditor’s choice.

This Court’s cases dealing with domicile look principally to the person’s subjective belief as to where his or her true home is located. If the person is physically somewhere else, the Court has given overwhelming weight to evidence that the person hopes, intends, or expects to return. See Blount v. Boston, 351 Md. 360, 368, 718 A.2d 1111, 1115 (1998) (“This Court has held on numerous occasions that the ‘controlling factor in determining a person’s domicile is his intent. One’s domicile, generally, is that place where he intends it to be.’ ”). The objective indicia usually considered by the Court—where the person is registered to vote, the address on the person’s driver’s license, where the person receives mail or keeps furniture or other belongings, for example—seem to be examined less for any direct bearing on domicile and more in determining what the person’s subjective belief really is and whether it is reasonable under the circumstances. See Bainum v. Kalen, 272 Md. 490, 499, 325 A.2d 392, 397 (1974); Stevenson v. Steele, 352 Md. 60, 70, n. 3, 720 A.2d 1176, 1180, n.3 (1998).

That kind of deference to the person’s subjective hope or intent, which both the Orphans’ Court and the Circuit Court stressed in reaching their respective conclusions, has far less validity when determining pure residency for purposes of ET § 8-104(c). Whether, in her heart, Ms. Faya regarded Catonsville as her true home and earnestly hoped, intended, or even expected that, one day, she might be able to return there is certainly entitled to be considered as part of the broad mix of evidence relevant to where she actually “resided” when she died. Because residency under that statute is an independent alternative to domicile, however, it ultimately must be determined on the basis of objective facts beyond her subjective hope, intention, or expectation, and, if the statute is to have real meaning, residency must be reasonably capable of determination by the creditor. Accordingly, those subjective factors, important to a determination of domicile, necessarily have much less weight than whether, or when, the person actually might be able or expected to return to his or her former residence or place of domicile.

This was not a situation of Ms. Faya’s being in a Baltimore City facility for acute care or even for a several-week or several-month period of longer-term therapy or care that, one day, would no longer require her presence there. Of critical importance in looking at the reality of her situation, the undisputed evidence was that, during the entire period of eleven months left to her, Ms. Faya was unable to be weaned off a ventilator and had to be fed through a feeding tube. The only times she left University Specialty Hospital were when she needed more acute care at other hospitals, all in Baltimore City. The fact that, because of Medicare requirements, the hospital was required to formally discharge and readmit her if she were away for more than 24 hours has no significance whatever because she was, in fact, returned to USH each time.

Here, notwithstanding what turned out to be unduly optimistic progress notes made within a few months after her arrival at USH indicating some improvement in her condition and some prospect of her returning home, the evidence at the more critical times nearer to her death eight months later was clear that, due to her unfortunate medical condition, it remained unlikely that she ever would have been able to return to her Catonsville home. A progress note dated as early as July 3, 2003 noted that she was in the chronic ventilator unit and that “[s]he is not a candidate for weaning as she has severe end-stage COPD.” Additional progress notes in the succeeding months confirmed that she was not a candidate for weaning from the ventilator unit. She obviously could not return home while she remained dependent on artificial life support and needed to be constantly monitored by trained professionals.

As an element of domicile, this Court has defined “residence” as the place where one “actually lives.” Stevenson v. Steele, 352 Md. 60, 69, 720 A.2d 1176, 1180 (1998). The plain simple fact, given insufficient attention by the Orphans’ Court and the Circuit Court, is that, in light of Ms. Faya’s situation, ÜSH was where she “actually live[d]” when she died. That was her dwelling, her home, her abode for eleven months—the balance of her life—and likely would have remained so even if she had lived months or perhaps even years longer. She did not die prematurely while in the course of recovery. The two trial courts effectively, and erroneously, grafted on to the concept of actual residency subjective elements of permanency that are more appropriate to determining domicile, and that is not the way the statute should be read.

Relying on the fact that § 19-342 of the Health-General Article refers to persons receiving care in hospitals as “patients” and § 19-343 of that Article refers to persons in “related facilities” such as nursing homes as “residents,” the personal representative suggests that, in enacting ET § 8-104(c), the Legislature did not intend for persons receiving treatment in hospitals to be considered as “residents.” We reject that notion. For one thing, there is no support for it in the legislative history of any of those statutes. Long-term care for medical problems, disabilities, or rehabilitation therapy may be provided by long-term acute care hospitals, chronic care hospitals, chronic disease centers, comprehensive care facilities, continuing care facilities, nursing homes, and nursing facilities. A patient in any of those facilities, depending on his or her actual situation, may be regarded as “residing” there for purposes of § 8-104(c), or not. The definitions vary and overlap.⁵

It is neither reasonable nor practical to base a determination of whether a decedent who was a patient in any of these long-term care facilities “resided” there, for purposes of § 8-104(c), on what kind of license the facility has or whether it is called a nursing home or a chronic care hospital. Nor is it consistent with the statutory purpose. One must keep in mind that § 8-104(c) applies to all creditors of the decedent, not just hospitals or nursing homes seeking to recover the cost of care provided to the decedent.

How is any particular creditor, who may have little knowledge about the decedent other than that he or she died while a patient in a facility, to know whether the decedent would have been able, within any particular time, to return to a home in another county, much less whether, at the time of her death, she hoped, intended, or expected to do so? Is the creditor to be put to the burden of discovering who her treating physicians were and asking their opinion as to whether she would be returning home soon—information that, due to health privacy laws, the physicians probably would be unable to supply? To read the statute as requiring that kind of extensive inquiry as a precondition to filing a claim in the county where the decedent died and had, in fact, lived for the preceding eleven months is wholly inconsistent with the legislative intent.

A simple investigation by a creditor in this case would reveal that Ms. Faya died while in a long-term care facility, that she had lived there for eleven months and at the time of her death was in no condition to return to her Catonsville home, and that no estate had been opened in any other county. Under ET § 8-104(c), that suffices. The filing of the claim in Baltimore City caused no prejudice to the estate or burden to the personal representative. As pointed out by Allan J. Gibber in Gibber on Estate Administration, 6-55 (5th ed. and 2011 Supplement):

“Upon appointment, a personal representative has an affirmative duty to search the claims dockets in each of the counties in which a claim could have been filed, to discover if any claim was filed prior to appointment. The sooner after death appointment is accomplished, the less likely it is for claims to have been filed elsewhere.”

For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals is affirmed.⁶

JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED; COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER.

BELL, C.J., BATTAGLIA and ELDRIDGE, JJ., dissent.

1 . In this regard, and generally under the Maryland Code, Baltimore City is regarded as a county. See Maryland Code, Art. 1, § 14.

2 . The claim filed in Baltimore City was for $210,018, nearly $3,800 more than actually was owed. That excess is not relevant to this appeal.

3 . USH witnesses explained that, under Medicare guidelines, i£ a patient leaves a long-term care hospital for acute or emergency care after midnight and does not return prior to the following midnight—i.e., remains away for more than 24 hours—the hospital is required to formally discharge her. That is what occurred in Ms. Faya’s case. On each occasion, she was officially discharged and readmitted upon her return.

4 . In 1974, as part of the ongoing code revision process, Article 93 was recodified as part of the Estates & Trusts Article.

5 . As an example, Md.Code, § 19-301(l) of the Health-General Article defines "nursing facility” as “a related institution that provides nursing care for 2 or more unrelated individuals.” Section 19-1401 of that same Article defines "nursing home” as "a facility (other than a facility offering domiciliary or personal care as defined in Subtitle 3 of this title) which offers nonacute inpatient care to patients suffering from a disease, chronic illness, condition, disability of advanced age, or terminal disease requiring maximal nursing care without continuous hospital services and who require medical services and nursing services rendered by or under the supervision of a licensed nurse together with convalescent, restorative, or rehabilitative services.” The State Health Plan, which is a regulation of the State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH), defines "nursing home” as “a health care facility licensed for comprehensive care beds under COMAR 10.07.02. COMAR 10.24.08.16.B(32).

The State Health Plan defines "chronic hospital” as "a facility licensed as a special hospital-chronic disease in accordance with COMAR 10.07.01 that serves patients who do not need acute care or care in another kind of specialty hospital, whose needs for frequency of monitoring by a physician and for frequency and duration of nursing care exceeds the requirements of COMAR 10.07.02 for care in a comprehensive care or extended care facility, and whose expected length of stay, typically exceeds 25 days.” COMAR 10.24.08.16B(10). A “comprehensive care facility” is defined as “a facility licensed in accordance with COMAR 10.07.02 that admits patients suffering from disease or disabilities, or advanced age, requiring medical service and nursing service rendered by or under the supervision of a registered nurse.” COMAR 10.24.08.16.B(12).

6 . The dissent accuses us of making assertions not supported by the record and of giving no guidance to the public regarding the proper interpretation of the word "resided.” Although we certainly disagree with the ultimate conclusion of the two trial courts, we have made no assertions of fact unsupported in the record. It is the dissent, rather, that has "cherry-picked" the parts of the record that support its argument and largely ignored the more relevant ones that destroy it. The critical determinative fact is that, whatever may have been her hopes or expectations when she was first taken to USH and during the early part of her stay there, for the entire eleven months Ms. Faya was at USH, she remained on artificial life support from which, according to the medical records the dissent had chosen to ignore, she could not and would not be weaned. The dissent does not tell us how any creditor would be able to know that Ms. Faya—an 82-year old woman who had lived alone in her Catonsville home—would be able to return there while totally dependent on artificial life support and constant monitoring for her daily survival. As for guidance, this is obviously not a situation where there is a "one size fits all'' universal construct. Each case is dependent on its facts. We have decided this case based on its facts, which is what courts are supposed to do.