Posted on 07/12/2009 9:29:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
This one's going to blow baby boomers' minds. It concerns a little-known law dating to Elizabethan England suddenly being enforced with gusto in Pennsylvania. The law can force adult children to pay their parents' health-care costs.
If Mom and Pop can't pay, you pay. If they have the money but refuse to pay, you pay. If you don't, watch your credit rating sink under the weight of a legal judgment that will haunt you for life.
It happened to Don Grant. It can happen to you.
The Havertown man is nearly 50 and struggling to pay his mortgage and $100,000 in student loans incurred by his daughter, a recent Albright College grad.
Last year, Grant was sued because his mother, Diana Fichera, did not pay an $8,000 bill at a Delaware County nursing home, where she rehabilitated after surgery.
Grant went to court with his half-sister, who was also sued. He told the nursing-home attorney that he's estranged from his mother and that Fichera has income from Social Security plus two pensions.
The nursing-home lawyer told Grant that all would be resolved if Fichera paid up. When she again refused, the judgment was entered against the whole family.
Family strife costly
Grant says that his relationship with his mother "has always been strained" and that he was raised primarily by his grandparents.
"It was a big house in Drexel Hill," he recalls. "She lived on the second floor. We lived on the first. Sometimes, she'd show for dinner, sometimes not. She never did homework with us."
Grant says his mother has long overspent and mismanaged her money. Fichera declined to comment through her daughter, Grant's half-sister, who asked not to be named.
Public records show pages of judgments and liens against Fichera, 71, who receives a $1,434 monthly pension after working for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 23 years. (Unlike wages, which can be garnisheed, Social Security and pensions are generally exempt from seizure.)
In 2006, the Wallingford Nursing & Rehab Center sued Fichera for not paying a $28,000 bill.
Two years later, she accrued another debt at Brinton Manor in Glen Mills. This time, the nursing-home lawyer got creative.
Old law, new use
Blue Bell lawyer Brian Scott Dietrich represents Brinton Manor, but did not return phone calls for comment. Pennsylvania State University law professor Katherine Pearson knew why as soon as I mentioned his name.
"There are three or four major lawyers in Pennsylvania who specialize in representing nursing homes and hospitals, and one of their favorite tools is Pennsylvania's filial statute. Dietrich is one of them," says Pearson, an expert on the arcane issue, also known as "support of indigents."
"These attorneys will bring suit against adult children even if the children live out of state and even if it's been years since they had contact with their parent."
The legal concept of requiring children to support their parents predates colonial America.
"It's a noble theory, a law to make families responsible for each other," Pearson notes. "It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now."
In fact, she adds, filial cases usually "end any real possibility of the family reuniting."
Pay now or pay later
Grant learned of Fichera's rehab debt in a letter from Dietrich's office in March 2008.
"I said, 'Don't contact me. I have nothing to do with her. You're barking up the wrong tree.' "
A month later, Grant was laid off. In August, he was sued.
By the time of the court hearing, Grant had found work for less pay at a firm that sells foreclosures. "I talked to a lawyer," he says, "but he wanted $400, and I didn't have it."
Representing himself was an expensive mistake. Grant never knew he had a narrow window to appeal. Now, it's too late.
"Most of the time, the nursing homes will still compromise and settle, but not always," Pearson says. "Once they have a judgment, they feel empowered."
So a hurt and angry son is left with a dilemma he can't afford: Go into debt to pay his mother's debt, or ignore it and brace for the worst.
"If I go to buy a car, it's going to affect my credit," he says. "If we try to sell the house, it will come up."
Needless to say, Grant no longer speaks to his mother.
"The worst part? She's got as much money coming in as we do," he says. "And I'm being held responsible for her irresponsibility."
What about the fact that the kids are the default inheritors? If we acknowledge that all other things being equal, the kids should receive the deceased parents' estates, then why is it unreasonable to assume they might have some liability accompanying that as well, or at least liability capped at the amount of any inheritance? If they're such completely separate entities, would you be willing to have the law changed so that adult children no longer inherit by default? Now I do agree that I don't think it's right for people to be asked to pay if the consumer is alive and refuses to pay.
...well said and true.
peonage and indentured servitude are back as a matter of judicial policy.
I have heard of this before, but not to this extent. I think that they, (lawyers and nursing homes) are pushing this as a way to force people to accept universal coverage. The fact is that the woman may not have gotten the rehab under universal government coverage.
It seems to me that the nursing home should have verified who was going to pay for the treatment before accepting the patient.
The state of New Jersey would have taken everything that the woman owns and sold it at auction, as well as her two pensions, before allowing her to enter the rehab facility.
Actually it is from the Old Testament of the Bible.
I think the other dimension that lawyers and corporations have not factored into their thinking yet, is during a severe economic downturn, people losing jobs, their retirement and eventually their homes should not be screwed with lightly. When people lose everything, they will lose it.
I didn’t ask where the words of your post came from, I asked you if you were what people call an economic conservative, meaning not too interested in social conservatism.
You are in my prayers. I have a similar situation. My Dad is gone (died a few years back), and I haven't spoken to my mother for a long time. We've had children she's never met.
I cut contact completely after Daddy died. I changed my phone numbers, asked relatives not to share any of our personal information with her, etc. We even contemplated getting a restraining order at one point.
I would not pay her debts under any circumstances.
I really can't see how this is legal, since a parent's debts aren't obligations a child has committed to pay.
This is their next move.
They have the precedent set already with the draconian
child support laws.
You will be their next meal.
The estate would have to pay the outstanding debts of the deceased before any distributions were made to the kids. If there were no assets, there would be no inheritance.
I’m not really following you, because I didn’t ask a question. The situation you describe is pretty much the way it works now, and probably IMHO the best compromise. I was trying to reason with another poster who thought that since the kids were adults they should be treated as separate financial entities, never liable for the debts of the parent. I asked if they’re so separate why are they the kids the default inheritors, and if he believed in that separation to the extent where he would have the kids no longer be heirs by default.
It’s quite simple, really. A debt is a contract, while an asset is a possession.
A contract requires that all parties are not only legally eligible to enter into it, but also that they do so willingly. Furthermore, all parties must receive some sort of consideration, or else the contract is invalid.
A possession is tangible property that can be sold, traded, or gifted as the owner sees fit, even in death. If specific desires for the disposition of his assets were not expressed in advance, then he has by default chosen to allow their distribution in accordance with the established legal methods at the time of his death.
The bottom line is assets can be inherited because they do not compel the beneficiary to enter into a legal agreement against their will. Debts cannot be inherited because to do so would cause a party to enter into a contract from which they enjoy no consideration, immediately rendering it invalid.
He had them divide their assets equally. Her half was quickly consumed by the care home, after Dad could no longer take care of her. He had earned almost all of their joint assets, but his support of her was limited to about half of their net worth.
He still had enough to provide himself with a meager living for the rest of his life. My brother and I did not have to bankrupt ourselves to pay for about eight years of nursing home care.
I don't know the optimal solution. Perhaps euthanasia? Murder-suicide by the cogent spouse?
If any of you has the ideal solution to this problem, you should speak up.
Hmmm. Excellent points. Thank you.
So sorry to hear of your parent’s situation. Alzheimer’s is the worst.
Your parents used their assets as far as they would go. And I agree that in their case, dividing the assets was the proper thing to do. Your father had to have some means of survival.
My beef is with parents who bequeath all their assets and live on income from a trust owned by their children or a meager existence on Social Security, for ex., so those assets cannot be used for long term care. Their children could inherit a sizable estate, yet the taxpayers will be footing the bill for Mom and Pop’s long term care. It’s legal, but I don’t like it.
As for the solution, I don’t have one except for a return to having elderly parents live with their children for as long as possible. But with the long lives people are living, you can have 70 year old “children” taking care of 90 year old Mom or Pop! Not the ideal either. So that doesn’t work in all cases.
Thanks for posting that I had no clue about the VA Pension. As I watch the value of my 401K’s dwindle to next to nothing and come to the realization that my only real source of income upon retirement could turn out to be Social Security, it’s nice to know that there’s actually something out there for guys like me who served during wartime but didn’t stay in the military long enough to retire (I was on active duty for 10 years, not the required 20).
I’m sorry to hear of your situation and will keep you in my prayers as well.
Take care, Friend.
AFAIK, that’s pretty much what happens now. When someone dies, their assets and debts go into their estate. Creditors have first right over heirs, which is part of the the function of a death announcement and of probate, to allow any creditors to come forward while whatever assets there are from which to collect still exist. After they’ve been satisfied, the heirs get whatever is left according to what’s specified in the will. If the assets are less than the debt, the creditors don’t get full value back, but the heirs don’t get anything, and the excess debt doesn’t pass down to them.
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