Court Opinion

ID: 9545816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:19:59.288234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:34.884758
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I disagree with the Court’s affirming the district court’s conclusion that “Scarberry was medically indigent from the moment at which he entered the hospital for his emergency care on July 10, 1984,____” At the time that Scarberry entered the hospital he had a tort claim against the owner of the farm where he was employed which was doubtless in excess of the amount for which Scarberry later settled. However, on January 16, 1985, Scarberry chose to settle his case against his employer for the employer’s homeowner’s insurance policy limits, i.e., $100,000, rather than pursue his claim further against not only the employer’s insurance coverage, but against the employer’s other assets. Scarberry’s tort claim may have been worth a great deal more than $100,000, had he chosen to pursue his claim further against his employer. Accordingly, the conclusion that Scarberry was medically indigent at the time he entered the hospital is based solely on the hindsight of his settlement, and not upon the tort claim which Scarberry had against his employer at the time he was admitted to the hospital.
Further, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that it can be said that at the time Scarberry was hospitalized his tort claim would be settled for the $100,000 insurance proceeds, and that those insurance proceeds would be placed in a trust and held to be exempt by the bankruptcy court in his bankruptcy filing which would occur 9 months after he entered the hospital. Furthermore, until the bankruptcy court actually ruled that the entire amount of the trust fund would be “reasonably necessary for the support of him and his dependents,” I.C. § 11-604(1), there was no basis to conclude that Scarberry was medically indigent.
Nevertheless, I concur in that part of the Court’s opinion which concludes that, under our decision in Carpenter v. Twin Falls County, 107 Idaho 575, 691 P.2d 1190 (1984), the hospital is not absolutely barred from asserting its claim, even if it has not technically met the time requirements of *440I.C. § 31-3505. Therefore, I agree with the Court’s opinion that the case must be remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Carpenter decision.