Court Opinion

ID: 9753251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:05:27.252799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:32.765234
License: Public Domain

RAKER, Judge,
dissenting, joined by BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, J.:
Today the majority restates a fairly common rule regarding a minor’s liability for the cost of medical necessities: where a parent is unable or unwilling to pay for a minor child’s necessary emergency medical treatment at the time of incursion of the treatment, the child, upon reaching the age of majority, may be held liable under the doctrine of necessities for the cost of the medical care. Maj. op. at 542-544. Other courts have employed similar rules, finding minors liable for necessary medical treatment where the parents are unable, refuse, or fail to provide for such treatment. See John D. Hodson, Annotation, Infant’s Liability for Medical, Dental, or Hospital Services, 53 A.L.R.4th 1249 (2001). Applying this *559rule to the case before us, the majority finds the petitioner liable for the cost of medical care rendered while she was a minor. The majority reasons that the failure of petitioner’s father to apply the insurance proceeds recovered after petitioner’s accident towards the cost of petitioner’s medical care is “a clear indication of his unwillingness at the time to pay for petitioner’s medical expenses at a time fairly contemporaneous with the provision of medical services, i.e., within 60 days.” Maj. op. at 555.1
I disagree with the majority’s holding for two reasons. First, the majority finds the petitioner’s father unwilling to pay for her medical bills without discussing what constitutes unwillingness. Indeed, the majority’s reasoning is based largely on cases that do not touch on the meaning or import of unwillingness. Second, this State’s common law and statutory law does not support the proposition that a child, supported by his or her parents, should be held responsible for isolated necessary medical costs that the parents fail to pay. Despite the fact that parents are obligated by statute to support their children, the majority leaves minors who are supported by their parents liable for their parents’ choices, regardless of what those choices are or whether the choices actually reflect unwillingness to pay for necessary medical care.
The majority finds petitioner liable to respondent because her father was unwilling to pay for petitioner’s medical expenses, not because her father was unable to pay. As stated above, the majority believes that the father’s failure to use insurance proceeds to pay the hospital for his daughter’s medical bills is a “clear indication” of his unwillingness to pay for petitioner’s medical expenses. Maj. op. at 555. There is *560little case law in this State, or any other state, to help us decide when a parent is unwilling to pay for his or her child’s necessary medical costs. What little law there is, however, suggests that where a child is supported by his or her parents, the parents’ failure or default on a single necessary expense does not usually render the child liable for that expense.2
As support for its reading of “unwilling,” the majority relies on a circular reading of two decisions: Garay v. Overholtzer, 332 Md. 339, 631 A.2d 429 (1993), and Johns Hopkins Hosp. v. Pepper, 346 Md. 679, 697 A.2d 1358 (1997). Both Garay and Pepper held that a minor may recover medical expenses from the tortfeasor who caused the minor’s injuries. While neither case involved a minor sued for unpaid medical expenses, in order to justify allowing a minor to sue a tortfeasor for medical expenses, both cases relied on the following reasoning: “when parents are unwilling or truly unable to pay for such expenses, leaving the child or his or her estate potentially bound in contract, principles of reciprocity demand that the child be given the opportunity to recover those expenses from the wrongdoer.” Pepper, 346 Md. at 694, 697 A.2d at 1365; Garay, 332 Md. at 371, 631 A.2d at 445. Thus, in order to reach the conclusion that the child should be able to recover medical expenses from a tortfeasor, both Garay and Pepper *561assumed, without analysis, that a child is liable for medical expenses when the parents are unable or unwilling to pay.
Despite the fact that Garay and Pepper did not touch on the implications of finding a child liable for medical costs, the majority reasons as follows:
“The rationales underlying Garay and Pepper recognize that public policy and justice demand that an injured minor have the right to recover incurred medical expenses from a third-party tort-feasor, where the child’s parents are unable or unwilling to pay for those expenses, because the medical provider may sue to recover them .... By parity of reasoning, it would seem that such a child, upon attaining adulthood, may be liable in contract to pay for medical necessaries provided to him or her while a minor, if the parents were unable or unwilling to pay for such necessaries.”
Maj. op. at 545-546 (emphasis in original). Unfortunately, there is no parity between Garay, Pepper and the case before us. As stated above, Garay and Pepper did not attempt to delve into the meaning of “unwilling.”3
By restating an unanalyzed assumption in Garay and Pepper as its conclusion, the majority leaves us with no guidance as to when a parent should be found unwilling to pay for their child’s necessary medical expenses. All we are left with is the majority’s conclusory and, I believe, incorrect statement that the father’s failure to turn over insurance proceeds to the plaintiff is a “clear” indication of the father’s unwillingness to pay. This provides no clearer a definition of unwillingness than did this Court’s opaque statement in Garay: “Most courts appear to recognize this formulation of the necessaries doctrine, but the determination of whether a parent or guardian is able and willing to supply necessaries varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and is heavily dependent on the facts of each individual case.” Garay, 332 Md. at 369, 631 A.2d at 444.
*562The majority also brushes aside petitioner’s argument that Garay’s discussion of willingness constitutes obiter dictum. Specifically, the majority states that when a question of law is raised by the issues in a case and the Court supplies a deliberate expression of its opinion upon that question, such opinion is not to be regarded as obiter dictum. This appears to be a sensible definition, but in applying it, the majority relies on a long quotation from Carstairs v. Cochran, 95 Md. 488, 52 A. 601 (1902). In Carstairs, this Court stated that “[a]ll that is necessary in Maryland to render the decision of the Court of Appeals authoritative on any point decided, is to show that there was an application of the judicial mind to the precise question adjudged.” Id. at 499-500, 52 A. at 601 (quoting Alexander v. Worthington, 5 Md. 471-72 (1854)). Relying heavily on this one sentence, the majority concludes that in Garay, this Court applied its “judicial mind” to the issue of unwillingness when we wrote that “we agree” that the doctrine of necessaries is sufficient to hold a minor child liable for medical expenses if it can be shown that his or her parent is unwilling or truly unable to pay them. Maj. op. at 555 (citing Garay, 332 Md. at 371, 631 A.2d at 445). If a mere statement of agreement with a very broad rule constitutes an application of this Court’s judicial mind to single word within that rule, then I fear we have expanded the precedential value of our decisions to the point of absurdity.
If the majority had relied on a more complete reading of Carstairs and assessed the scope of this Court’s decision in Garay, I believe it would have reached a different conclusion as to the impact of Garay on the case before us. In the sentence from Carstairs immediately following that relied upon by the majority, this Court provided some guidance as to what is meant by “application of the judicial mind.” We explained that “in Michael v. Morey, 26 Md. 239, it was said that a decision there cited, could not be said to be obiter dictum, ‘as the question was directly involved in the issues of law raised by the demurred to the bill, and the mind of the court was directly drawn to and distinctly expressed upon the subject.’ ” Carstairs, 95 Md. at 500, 52 A. at 601.
*563Even a quick reading of Garay reveals that in order to reach the conclusion that a child should be able to sue a tortfeasor for medical expenses, this Court relied, without analysis, on the principle that a child may be liable for medical care where the parents are unwilling to pay. We did not address, even tangentially, the issue in this case: whether a child may be held liable when his or her parents inexplicably fail to pay for an isolated necessary medical cost but otherwise provide for and support the child. The mind of this Court was never “drawn to nor distinctly expressed upon” this subject.
Rather than analyze the situations in which a parent could be found unable or unwilling to pay for a child’s necessary medical care, the Garay court simply observed that:
“Most courts appear to recognize this formulation of the necessaries doctrine, but the determination of whether a parent or guardian is able and willing to supply necessaries varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and is heavily dependent on the facts of each individual case.”
Garay, 332 Md. at 369, 631 A.2d at 444. This observation explicitly disclaims any attempt to set out the circumstances under which a parent may be found unwilling to pay for a child’s necessary medical care. Therefore, Garay’s reference to the liability of a child resulting from a parent’s unwillingness to pay for medical costs does not help answer the question before us, and should, as petitioner argues, be regarded as dictum.
Those cases that do appear to touch on the question of willingness have generally found parents unwilling to pay for necessary medical expenses in three situations: first, where the parent has abandoned the child; second, where the parent contributes absolutely nothing to the child’s support; and third, where the child or parent has recovered medical expenses from the tortfeasor.4 The case before us does not fall *564into any of these categories, and I see no reason, particularly on this record, to hold the petitioner liable for medical expenses incurred while she was a child and supported by her parents.
It is sensible to hold that a parent who has truly abandoned a child is unwilling to pay for anything for the child, including medical care. In In re Dzwonkiewicz’s Estate, 231 Mich. 165, 203 N.W. 671 (1925), the Supreme Court of Michigan found a child liable for emergency medical care given the child. The child’s father had abandoned the family. Id. In Westrate v. Schipper, 284 Mich. 383, 279 N.W. 870 (1938), the court found that in Dzwonkiewicz, the question of inability or unwillingness was easily settled because the father had abandoned the child. Id. at 872. In contrast, Westrate involved a child who was living at home with her parents at the time medical care was provided. The court found that under such circumstances the child could not be hable, absent proof that the child’s father was “not willing and able to pay for the necessaries.” See id. at 871-72.
It is also reasonable to find a parent unwilling to pay for the child’s medical care where the parent contributes nothing to the child’s support. In Trainer v. Trumbull, 141 Mass. 527, 6 N.E. 761 (1886), the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts stated:
“[A]n infant who is already well provided for in respect to board, clothing and other articles suitable for his condition is not to be held responsible if any one supplies to him other board clothing, & c., although such person did not know that the infant was already well supplied. So, on the other hand, the mere fact that an infant, as in this case, had a father, mother, and guardian, no one of whom did anything towards his care or support, does not prevent his being bound to pay for that which was actually necessary for him when furnished.”
*565Id. at 762 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Likewise, in Strong v. Foote, 42 Conn. 203 (1875), the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut found a child liable for the cost of necessary dental work where the child’s guardian did not show any effort or intention to repair or preserve the child’s teeth. Id. at 205.
Finally, some courts have found parents unwilling to pay for their child’s necessary medical care if the child recovers damages for medical costs from the tortfeasor and the parent nonetheless refuses to pay for the care. This line of cases started with Cole v. Wagner, 197 N.C. 692, 150 S.E. 339 (1929), where the Supreme Court of North Carolina stated:
“[W]e do not think that the fact in regard to his father’s usual support can absolve the infant from liability, under the facts and circumstances of this case. The infant was seriously injured, and by fair inference was immediately taken to the hospital and his life and usefulness was saved by the hospital, medical and surgical attention.... During the period of treatment the father paid for no hospital, medical or surgical treatment for the infant. It seems that he was either unable, at least he did not provide for the infant.... The infant now has an estate, and it is unthinkable that the guardian of the infant would not pay the reasonable expense for saving the child’s life and usefulness.”
Id. at 341. Similarly, in Bitting v. Goss, 203 N.C. 424, 166 S.E. 302 (1932), the court found Cole controlling where the minor had recovered damages from the tortfeasor, the father had recovered damages for medical expenses, and the father subsequently refused to pay the medical care provider.
The rule in Cole, that a child living with his parents may be liable for the parents’ unexplained failure to pay for the child’s necessary medical care, has generally been limited to situations where the child recovered damages from the tortfeasor for medical costs. In Madison Gen. Hosp. v. Haack, 124 Wis.2d 398, 369 N.W.2d 663 (1985), the Supreme Court of Wisconsin stated that “courts may view the Cole rule as applicable only to situations in which the child’s estate consists *566of damages which include recovery for medical and hospital expenses.” Id. at 667. See also Greenville Hosp. Sys. v. Smith, 269 S.C. 653, 239 S.E.2d 657, 659 (1977) (“in Cole, the North Carolina Court permitted the recovery from the minor’s estate because the estate consisted of damages recovered by the minor’s guardian which included medical and hospital expenses”); Lane v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 48 N.C.App. 634, 269 S.E.2d 711, 716 (1980) (“Unlike the situation in Cole, in this case there is no issue of a separate estate or recovery in damages.... ”).
Cole and the cases following it thus reach the fair and defensible conclusion that where a minor has recovered damages to pay for the cost of medical care, the care provider should be able to recover those costs from the minor. As the court found in Cole, to allow a child to recover damages for medical expenses incurred by the child and then deny the care provider the right to recover its costs from the child, “would be blowing hot and cold in the same breath.” Cole, 150 S.E. at 341.
These three readings of “unwilling” hold a child liable for necessary medical costs only if it is relatively certain that the parents cannot pay for the expenses or if the child has recovered damages for the very costs the medical care provider is seeking. The cases do not hold the child liable where the parents, who otherwise support their child, fail to pay for isolated medical expenses. Moreover, the cases, other than Cole and its progeny, determine the issue of unwillingness based on the parent’s conduct before the child required medical care. This makes sense because basing a finding of unwillingness on the parents’ conduct after medical expenses are incurred would enable parents who otherwise support their children to selectively avoid paying for costs of necessary medical expenses.
In those cases following Cole, unwillingness is determined after medical costs are incurred. Cole does not apply to the case before us for two reasons. First, the petitioner did not personally recover any medical expenses from the tortfeasor. *567Therefore, if the petitioner is found liable, she will not be able to pay the costs out of her recovery from the tortfeasor. The second reason Cole does not apply here is that courts following Cole have looked for clear proof of the parents’ unwillingness to pay. In Bitting, the plaintiff contacted the parents who affirmatively refused to pay. The court observed that the “plaintiff has demanded payment for said services from T.R. Goss [the father], but no part of the said reasonable value of the services has been paid, and the said T.R. Goss has at all times and still refuses to pay the same or any part thereof.” Bitting, 166 S.E. at 302. Here, by contrast, it does not appear from the record that the father was contacted by the hospital until the time his daughter had reached majority and was sued by the hospital.5 So far as I can tell from the record, the father never affirmatively refused to pay the hospital. Since the father was otherwise supporting his daughter, without further proof, there is no basis for concluding that his failure to use insurance proceeds to pay for her medical care reflects unwillingness to pay.
In contrast to all of the cases discussed above, the majority’s result would enable petitioner’s father to spend the insurance proceeds on whatever he pleased, leaving his daughter liable to the hospital. Despite the fact that the father supported petitioner during her childhood, the father could have, in this instance, used the funds for his own purposes rather *568than pay his daughter’s medical bills, thereby rendering her responsible for this necessary cost.
The majority’s holding is made more troubling by the fact that the record is anything but clear as to the father’s unwillingness to pay for his daughter’s medical costs. The majority recounts the father’s actions in recovering money for his daughter’s injuries as follows:
“Soon after her release from the hospital, petitioner filed for benefits under the coverage provided in her father’s Erie policy. During the claim process, petitioner and her father provided several documents to Erie regarding her medical expenses. On 16 March 1997, petitioner and her father signed a Disclosure Authorization, authorizing petitioner’s treating physician to furnish Erie with records of her post-accident treatment. On 1 May 1997, petitioner and her father signed an Assignment and Authorization of benefits under the PIP coverage instructing and directing Erie to pay directly to her treating physician the amount owed him.”
Maj. op. at 539. Contrary to the majority’s reading of these facts, it seems equally reasonable to conclude that the father was, in fact, willing to pay for his daughter’s medical expenses. Why else would he have assigned the benefits to his daughter’s doctor? It is not at all clear that the father, who supported his daughter during her youth and assigned the insurance benefits to his daughter’s physicians, was unwilling to pay for his daughter’s necessary medical costs.
The majority also fails to acknowledge that, as mentioned above, the hospital failed to contact the father until suit was brought in this case. The hospital had no first hand knowledge that the father was unwilling to pay. Despite respondent’s protestations, there is no reasonable excuse for not having inquired of the father. The hospital admits that it had the father’s name and phone number before the District Court trial. In this day and age, a name and phone number usually is enough information to contact a person. Again, I see no basis, certainly not a clear one, for claiming that the father’s *569actions indicate unwillingness to pay for his daughter’s medical bills.
In Garay, Judge Karwacki, writing for the Court, pointed to North Carolina Baptist Hospitals v. Franklin, 103 N.C.App. 446, 405 S.E.2d 814 (N.C.991), as an example of a case where parents were found willing and able to pay for their child’s necessary medical costs. Garay, 332 Md. at 369, 631 A.2d at 444. As in this case, the parents in Franklin never paid for a necessary medical cost incurred by their child. The court, however, refused to find the parents unwilling or unable to pay because they had requested the medical care and agreed to pay for it. Franklin, 405 S.E.2d at 816. Unlike the parents in Cole, who had done nothing to obtain necessary medical treatment for their child, the parents in Franklin had “done everything that any parent could possibly do for its child in regard to necessaries except pay for them after the debt was incurred.” Id. at 817. The court concluded that “[t]o hold otherwise . .. would make children the guarantors of their parents’ debts for clothes, lodging, schooling, medical care and other necessaries.” Id. In the case before us, the petitioner’s father is more similar to the parents in Franklin than the parents in Cole or the other cases discussed above. Petitioner’s father had done all the things a parent would do under the circumstances except pay for the debt incurred.
The majority’s analysis of unwillingness is also out of synch with Maryland Code (1957, 1999 Repl. Vol., 2000 Supp.), § 5-203(b)(1) of the Family Law Article, which provides that the parents of a minor child “are jointly and severally responsible for the child’s support, care, nurture, welfare, and education. ...” This Court repeatedly has found that the obligation placed upon a parent to provide for the care and welfare of a minor is “not a perfunctory one, to be performed only at the voluntary pleasure or whimsical desire of the parent.” Palmer v. State, 223 Md. 341, 351, 164 A.2d 467, 473 (1960); Middleton v. Middleton, 329 Md. 627, 633, 620 A.2d 1363, 1366 (1993).
*570In keeping with the statutory view of a parent’s duty to provide for a child’s care, petitioner’s father should not be allowed to escape liability for the costs of medical care merely because he decided, after the care was rendered, not to transfer insurance proceeds to the care provider. This is particularly true where the record indicates that the hospital never contacted the father to determine whether he was willing to pay. The majority altogether ignores that the respondent agreed at oral argument that under this statute, even if the parents are truly unwilling to pay for medical care given their child, the parents, not the child, should be sued because liability is a statutory responsibility, irrespective of unwillingness.
It is also important to note that the majority’s application of Garay and Pepper distorts the meaning of disability. Maryland Rule 1 — 202(0 defines a person under disability as “an individual under the age of 18 years or an individual incompetent by reason of mental incapacity.” As the majority acknowledges, minors are under a disability and their contracts are therefore voidable. Maj. op. at 542. A minor under disability is not merely shielded from suit until the age of eighteen. He or she may always defend on the basis of disability, even after reaching the age of majority.
As a result of the majority’s erroneous application of Garay, in a case where parents inexplicably fail to pay the hospital fees associated with their child’s birth, the hospital is now relieved of any responsibility to notify the child’s parents of the hospital’s intent to sue. Instead, the hospital may wait eighteen years until the child reaches the age of majority. Thereafter, the hospital may sue the child rather than the parent even if the parents raised and supported the child until the age of majority and paid for all other necessary costs. This fundamentally changes the meaning of disability. The focus of the inquiry regarding disability is no longer on the overall state of the child’s relationship with his or her parents, but on the parents’ decision to pay a single necessary medical cost after the cost is incurred.
*571Under the majority’s reasoning, a child, upon turning age eighteen, may become liable for any necessary medical cost that the child’s parents neglected to pay. The child is liable whether or not the claimant ever asks the parents if they are willing to pay. The child is liable even where the parent inexplicably chooses a single occasion on which they will not pay for their child’s needs. This manner of piercing the shield of disability stands in stark contrast to the cases discussed above, where there was strong evidence that no one other than the child was or would be willing to pay for the medical care. In those cases, it was almost certain that the medical care provider would not be able to recover from anyone if the child was not forced to pay. The majority’s reasoning transforms disability from a shield protecting those too young to be bound to contracts into a starting gate, after which medical care providers are free to sue children for even the most isolated cost that the child’s parents inexplicably fail to pay.
In closing, I believe that the majority should have exercised greater caution in finding that petitioner’s father was unwilling to pay for his daughter’s medical bills. In Pepper, we confronted the question whether a family with a combined income of $21,000, two children, and pre-majority medical expenses for one child in excess of $1,100,000 was able to pay for their child’s medical expenses. Although the inability of the parents to pay for their child’s medical bills may have been more obvious in Pepper than the father’s unwillingness to pay in this case, we did not decide whether the parents were in fact unable to pay. Instead, we wrote:
“Whether or not parents are able to afford necessary medical care for their negligently injured minor child will vary from case to case according to the circumstances of the parties involved, including, but not limited to, parental income, existing financial assets and obligations, the number of children in the family, available insurance coverage, the cost of living and inflation rate, whether or not both parents work, or are even capable of working in light of the child’s injuries, and other economic and non-economic factors too numerous to list. It will also vary, of course, on the nature *572of the injury and the duration and manner of treatment. These infinitely variable factors preclude a bright line rule concerning the standard by which the affordability determination can be made. More often than not, juries will have to decide with the aid of expert and lay testimony when necessary, whether and to what extent an injured child’s medical necessaries exceed the financial ability of the parents.”
346 Md. at 701, 697 A.2d at 1369. Likewise, in Greenville Hosp. Sys. v. Smith, 269 S.C. 653, 239 S.E.2d 657 (1977), the Supreme Court of South Carolina was faced with a case where a minor’s parents failed to make any payment on their son’s hospital bill and the record did not indicate whether this was due to their inability or unwillingness to pay. The court found that:
“Mr. and Mrs. Smith have not pursued their right of action to seek recovery of the expenses they incurred for Kenneth’s medical and hospital treatment. Except for their continued failure to pay, nothing in the record indicates Kenneth’s parents are unable to pay the hospital bill. Absent such a showing, respondent must look to Mr. and Mrs. Smith for payment.”
Id. at 658-59. The court therefore remanded to the probate court to determine if Kenneth’s parents were able to discharge their obligation to pay his hospital expenses. Id. at 659. The court in Smith, like this court in Pepper, was extraordinarily careful in finding a child liable for his or her parents’ failure to pay for necessary medical costs.
For all the reasons stated herein, I respectfully dissent. To recap, I find that the majority’s reading of this Court’s opinions in Garay and Pepper fails to provide a workable definition of unwillingness on the part of a parent to pay for necessary medical expenses. I also believe that the majority’s analysis is out of step with our statutory and common law regarding the parental duty to care for children and the meaning of disability. In the future, unless a case falls into one of the three categories of cases where courts have found a *573child’s parents unwilling to pay for the child’s necessary medical care, I would not hold the child responsible for the parents’ choices.
Chief Judge BELL and Judge ELDRIDGE join in this dissenting opinion.

. It is not entirely clear why the passage of sixty or more days matters. The time frame set out by the majority raises the question whether the majority would find petitioner’s father unwilling to pay for his daughter's medical expenses if he had spent the insurance proceeds sixty-five days, ninety days or a year after the accident. Setting out such a time frame does little, if anything, in the way of providing us or prospective litiganls with a means to determine whether a parent is unwilling to pay for a child's medical bills.

. In finding petitioner liable, the majority states that it is "mindful of the distinction made by some states that a singular episode of a parent's refusal to pay for a child’s necessaries might not satisfy the state's view of adequate evidence of ‘unwillingness’ so as to trigger the minor’s liability.” Maj. op at 549. Nonetheless, the majority finds that "[ojver-weighing the arguable unfairness to the minor in the balancing, at least in the present case, is the consideration of not placing hospitals ... in a situation where apparently financially-able individuals may avoid paying for necessaiy medical treatment through a contrivance similar to that demonstrated on the record of this case.” Id. at 549.
We agree that the hospital should be paid. The hospital, however, should have sought recovery from petitioner's father rather than waiting to sue petitioner. The majority's decision to protect the hospital despite the hospital’s failure to determine whether petitioner’s father was actually unwilling to pay for petitioner’s medical bills will leave children liable even where it is the parent and not the child who contrives to avoid paying an isolated medical cost.

. Garay followed the rationale of Gardner v. Flowers, 529 S.W.2d 708 (Tenn.1975), which focused on whether a minor’s mother was unable to pay for the minor’s necessities.

. It is important to note that none of these cases, nor any presented by the majority deals solely with the question of unwillingness. Certainly, none of the cases we have found confront a scenario like that before us, where a father who otherwise provides for his child inexplicably fails to *564pay for the child’s necessary medical care after the cost of the care is incurred.

. The record is unclear whether the father or the grandfather received the bills for petitioner's medical expenses and the insurance proceeds from the insurance carrier. As the majority points out, petitioner's counsel was not clear as to whether the petitioner’s father or grandfather received the insurance proceeds. Maj. op. at 539 n. 4. The facts on this issue are made more confusing by the fact that the check from the insurance company was made out to Lewis Schmidt without any indication whether the money was directed to the father, Lewis Schmidt, Jr., or the grandfather, Lewis Schmidt, Sr. A letter from Erie Insurance Group to petitioner's counsel states that the Lewis Schmidt, Jr., was the "Erie Insured,” while Lewis Schmidt, Sr., was counsel’s client. Finally, petitioner’s lawyer argued before the Circuit Court that all the bills for petitioner’s medical expenses were sent to petitioner’s grandfather rather than her father.