Court Opinion

ID: 9753587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:19:42.187851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:38.795463
License: Public Domain

JOHN C. ELDRIDGE (Retired, Specially Assigned), J., dissenting, in which BELL, C.J., and BATTAGLIA, J., join.
I dissent. While I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the Court of Special Appeals erred by determining that a person’s bodily presence in a particular county served as the main qualification for residency in that county, I believe that the majority opinion makes factual findings not supported by the record and fails to offer any instructive guidance regarding the criteria to determine what is a county of residence under Maryland Code (1974, 2011 Repl.Vol.), § 8-104(c) of the Estates and Trusts Article. Section 8-104(c) provides, inter alia, as follows (emphasis added):
“If the claim is filed prior to the appointment of the personal representative, the claimant may file his claim with the register in the county in which the decedent was domiciled or in any county in which he resided on the date of his death .... ”
Maryland Rule 6-413(a) contains essentially the same provision. The dispositive issue in this case concerns the meaning of the word “resided” in § 8-104(c) and Rule 6-413(a).
The majority opinion states that the “relevant facts are undisputed” in this case, but then proceeds to make a variety *542of assertions that are either not supported by the record or are contrary to findings made by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. As stated in the majority opinion, the decedent, Dorothy C. Faya, lived most of her life at 606 Stoney Lane, Catonsville, in Baltimore County, where she owned her home. She suffered a fall which led to her hospitalization at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore City, from November 29, 2002, until December 21, 2002, when she was transferred to the respondent, University Specialty Hospital, a chronic care facility in Baltimore City. From that time until her death on November 21, 2003, Dorothy Faya was on several occasions transferred to other Baltimore City hospitals when she required services not available at University Specialty Hospital.
Each time Dorothy Faya was transferred to another hospital, she was officially discharged from University Specialty Hospital, and there was always the chance that she would not later have been re-admitted. In hindsight, the majority opinion argues that the fact that Ms. Faya was officially discharged “has no significance” because, in the end, she always returned to University Specialty Hospital. This position, however, overlooks the fact that her return to University Specialty Hospital was never guaranteed after her discharge.1 For every re-admission, she was assigned a new patient number. Her bed at the facility was not saved while she was away, but instead, her belongings were placed in a box and “put ... downstairs in the office ... [to] keep ... in case she came *543back.” Had University Specialty Hospital been fully occupied when she returned, she would not have been re-admitted. As the representative explained, “Only nursing homes have bed holds, not chronic [care hospitals.]”
The majority opinion also treats as a foregone conclusion that Dorothy Faya was never going to return to her home in Catonsville and advises lower courts to consider whether a “person actually might be able or expected to return to his or her former residence or place of domicile” (emphasis in original). In the present case, however, what was “actually” going to happen to Ms. Faya was unknown at time. Neither her physicians nor Ms. Faya herself ever concluded that she would be unable to leave University Specialty Hospital. The record before this Court clearly indicates that Dorothy Faya always intended to return home, and the hospital was well aware of this intent. She was competent during the period of hospitalizations, and the Circuit Court, reviewing the evidence firsthand, found that, for a variety of reasons, her only residence was her Catonsville house, which had remained unoccupied the entire time she was hospitalized.
Although Ms. Faya’s ultimate discharge plan was uncertain,2 the physician progress notes tracking Dorothy Faya’s health at University Specialty Hospital indicated that she had shown “great improvement since her admission” and that she was often “feeling really fine and she [did] not have any ... discomfort.”3 She could “move[ ] ... all four limbs fairly well” and “sit[ ] comfortably in the chair by the side of the *544bed” offering “no complaints....” The hospital staff assisted her “getting range of motion by restorative nursing.” Although she remained on a ventilator and a gastric feeding tube during her stay at University Specialty Hospital, the record is silent as to whether her conditions would sufficiently improve so that she could return home or be transferred to a nursing facility.
Ms. Faya’s actual cause of death is another issue obscured in the majority opinion, which states that “[s]he did not die prematurely while in the course of recovery.” However, the record is actually silent on the ultimate Cause and location of her death. Ms. Faya’s hospital records show that staff at University Specialty Hospital commenced cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her and that she was then “sent out [to] 911 to the acute where she was unable to be resuscitated.” A separate report notes that she was “transferred via 911” to “UMMS.” However, where she was sent, what caused her death, and where she ultimately died is not disclosed in the record.
The doctors treating Ms. Faya never gave her the prognosis that the majority opinion now sees fit to pronounce, that Ms. Faya “obviously could not return home.” Ms. Faya was receiving treatment at University Specialty Hospital and, according to her physician’s progress notes, was doing quite well. The simple fact is, at the time, no one knew what the outcome of Ms. Faya’s care would be. It is unreasonable, as well as a violation of Maryland Rule 8-131(c),4 for this Court now to make findings of historical facts concerning matters which, at the time, no one knew the outcome and which the Circuit Court record does not reveal.
*545The majority opinion stresses that if § 8-104 of the Estates and Trusts Article “is to have real meaning, residency must be reasonably capable of determination by the creditor.” (Emphasis in original). I agree that creditors, both medical providers and others alike, should be able to ascertain the residency of the decedent. Unfortunately, the majority opinion only offers confusion where more clarity is needed. There are no guidelines established by the majority’s opinion regarding what criteria this Court, the lower courts, or creditors should employ to determine an individual’s residency. The majority’s decision in this case hinges on the rather amorphous condition of “whether, or when, [a] person actually might be able or expected to return to his or her former residence or place of domicile” (emphasis in original) rather than being based on objective criteria previously applied by this Court to evaluate residency, such as mailing address, location of personal possessions, and documentary records. Foremost among the undefined criteria in the majority’s opinion is what comprises the difference between a long-term residential stay at a hospital and a shorter, non-residential stay.
As a starting point, the majority opinion fails to point out that the Hospital was, at all times, aware that the decedent’s home was in Baltimore County, as most of her hospital paperwork noted her residence as 606 Stoney Lane in Catonsville. Creditors did not need to conduct an extensive search for Ms. Faya’s home address, as the majority opinion implies, and her home address was in no way obscured from possible creditors. The majority opinion espouses concern that creditors will be unable to locate the proper venue for filing their claims, but in this case, it could not have been clearer that the most appropriate venue was the county where her home was located and where the majority of hospital records indicated she resided, Baltimore County.
This case presents a simple matter of a creditor filing in the wrong county and not correcting its mistake until the time for filing expired. Rather than taking the optimal course of action and filing a claim in the county where the decedent’s *546home was located, University Specialty Hospital, on December 10, 2003, less than a month after Ms. Faya’s death and prior to the decedent’s estate being opened, filed a claim with the office of the Register of Wills for Baltimore City, where the Hospital itself was located, in the amount of $210,028.26, although the actual balance of the decedent’s hospital bill was $206,343.12. Not until October 1, 2004, did University Specialty Hospital file a second claim in Baltimore County, where Ms. Faya’s home was located. This second claim was filed after the sixth month limitation period for filing claims specified by § 8-103 of the Estates and Trusts Article.5 Because the second claim filed in Baltimore County was late and, therefore, barred, University Specialty Hospital was forced to rely on its first claim and accordingly, brought the suit now before this Court, advancing the novel argument that Dorothy Faya “resided” in Baltimore City because of her hospital stay.
At the conclusion of its proceedings, the Circuit Court denied University Specialty Hospital’s claim, finding that the decedent did not reside in Baltimore City on the date of her death. The court, while acknowledging a legal distinction between a residence and domicile, nonetheless found that the decedent’s only residence on the date she died was at 606 Stoney Lane, Catonsville, in Baltimore County, which was also her domicile. The court reviewed the facts that had been complied during the hearing and noted that it was “uncontro*547verted” that Dorothy Faya “wanted to return to her” Catonsville home. Reviewing the entire record, the court found that:
“This lady was there [Baltimore City] for medical treatment only. She intended to get medical treatment, but on a temporary basis. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get out of the hospital and return to her home.”
As the majority opinion points out, the Circuit Court itself found that “the facts of this case do not support the conclusion that the Decedent ‘resided’ at University Specialty Hospital.” (Emphasis added). The Circuit Court also pointed out that no writings indicated that the decedent intended to change either her residence or her domicile and that the application for medical assistance, prepared for Dorothy Faya by an agent or employee of the hospital, listed her residence as 606 Stoney Lane, as did numerous other documents related to her stay at the Hospital. Even the University Specialty Hospital’s computer system listed the decedent’s residence as 606 Stoney Lane.
The majority asserts, and I agree, that “[rjesidence means something more than” “a person who dies while on vacation, or on a business trip, or during a short-term stay in a hospital.” Unfortunately, the majority fails to explain which indicia can or should be used to determine what that “something more” is. In resolving what it means to “reside” in a place, I believe this Court should consider its previous opinions on residency, which the majority opinion, in large part, ignores. Those opinions, however, indicate that an individual does not “reside” in a hospital room, especially when all of the objective criteria indicate that she “resided” elsewhere.
This Court’s opinions construing and/or applying the words “reside” or “residence” in statutes and constitutional provisions generally have involved enactments where those words were construed to mean “domicile.”6 But § 8-104(c) of the *548Estates and Trusts Article is a rare exception where the wording of the statute makes it clear that “resided” does not mean “domiciled.” Instead, in this statute, “any county in which [the decedent] resided” serves as an alternative to “the county in which the decedent was domiciled.”
Nevertheless, this Court’s opinions concerning the words “reside” or “residence” have often construed those words to mean “domicile.” The connection between the words “residence” and “domicile” is logical because a place where someone actually resides (in a non-domiciliary sense) is a major factor in determining whether the location is also that person’s domicile. But even in opinions where this Court has construed “residence” to mean “domicile,” the decisions lend insight as to what “reside” or “residence” means when those words do not mean “domicile.”
Our opinions have treated the words “reside” or “residence,” in a non-domiciliary sense, as synonymous with “dwelling,” “habitation,” “abode,” “actual residence,” “place where one lives” and “home.” See, e.g., Oglesby v. Williams, 372 Md. 360, 373-379, 382, 812 A.2d 1061, 1068-1072, 1074 (2002) (repeatedly equating non-domiciliary “residence” with “dwelling,” “habitation,” “abode,” “home,” and place where one “actually lives”); Blount v. Boston, 351 Md. 360, 365-372, 379-386, 718 A.2d 1111, 1114-1117, 1121-1124 (1998) (same); Stevenson v. Steele, 352 Md. 60, 69-70, 720 A.2d 1176, 1180 (1998) (residence is where one “actually lives”); Roberts v. Lakin, 340 Md. 147, 153, 665 A.2d 1024, 1027 (1995) (“ ‘A person may have several places of abode or dwelling’ ”); Bainum v. Kalen, 272 Md. 490, 497, 325 A.2d 392, 396 (1974) (same). Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1335 (8th ed.2004), defines “residence” as “[t]he act or fact of living in a given place for some time.... The place where one actually lives, as distinguished from *549domicile.... [B]odily presence as an inhabitant in a given place.”
The common understanding of the words “inhabitant,” “habitation,” “dwelling,” “home,” “abode,” and “place where one lives,” would not encompass a hospital where one is taken for medical treatment because of an accidental injury, and when the injured person intends to return to her “home” as soon as hospitalization is no longer necessary. This understanding is reflected in dictionary definitions. Thus, the word “inhabitant” is defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary at 1163 (1981) as “a person who dwells or resides permanently in a place as distinguished from a transient lodger or visitor....” “Habitation” is defined as “the act of inhabiting” and as “a dwelling place: HOUSE, HOME, RESIDENCE. ...” (Id. at 1017). Webster’s defines “dwelling” as a “building ... used for residence: ABODE, HABITATION.” (Id. at 706). “Dwelling house” is defined as a “house ... that is occupied as a residence in distinction from a store, office, or other building....” (Ibid.). Similarly, “abode” is defined as a “place where one ... dwells: HOME....” (Id. at 4). Finally, the first definitions of “home” are “the house and grounds with their appurtenances habitually occupied by a family ...,” and “a private dwelling: HOUSE.” (Id. at 1082).
The majority opinion fails to consider these definitions in deciding that Dorothy Faya’s residence was University Specialty Hospital, but even more troubling, it leaves open the question of which factors contribute to a determination of an individual’s residency. In evaluating residency, this Court has always considered objective indicators that get to the heart of the question of where the individual lived. A reasonable person, viewing Ms. Faya’s situation, would not objectively believe that she resided at University Specialty Hospital. No one would have described it as her home or her dwelling. The normal trappings of a residence were simply not present at the hospital. Her family members did not, and could not, reside with her; she did not furnish her room besides having a few personal belonging, and she never changed her mailing address.
*550Even more confusing for creditors is the majority’s insistence that “a several-week or several-month period of longer-term therapy or care” does not create a residence, particularly in light of the majority’s failure to furnish any specifics concerning when such “longer-term therapy or care” becomes residential. Nothing in the majority decision would prevent, for example, a hospital in Baltimore City from filing a claim against a decedent’s estate in Baltimore City, even if the decedent owned a home in Howard County and had merely spent a month at the Baltimore City hospital. No guidance is offered, or criteria set forth, as to what, in the majority’s opinion, distinguishes a non-residential “short-term stay” from a residential stay in a hospital.
Finally, the majority opinion bases its ultimate decision on information that it rightly acknowledges would not normally be available to creditors. The majority notes that, in this case, a “simple investigation” by a creditor would reveal that “at the time of [Ms. Faya’s] death [she] was in no condition to return to her Catonsville home,” but then criticizes the notion that creditors should be “put to the burden of discovering who [a patient’s] treating physicians [are] and asking their opinion as to whether [the patient] would be returning home soon— information that, due to health privacy laws, the physicians probably would be unable to supply.” The majority’s decision relies on information that it knows an average creditor would not be able to obtain. Nevertheless, a “simple investigation by a creditor in this case” would have quickly yielded the address of Dorothy Faya’s Catonsville home, where the estate was opened and where claims should have been filed.
University Specialty Hospital at all times knew the address of Dorothy Faya’s home. The Hospital had it listed in their records, and knew that she intended to return there. On the facts of this case, the creditor was well-aware of the decedent’s residency. It is sincerely unlikely that the Hospital filed in Baltimore City because it was confused as to where Ms. Faya resided. It filed in Baltimore City for its own ease and only now relies on that claim because the appropriately filed claim in Baltimore County was barred as untimely.
*551A normal person’s understanding of one’s “residence” would exclude hospitals treating a patient’s accidental injury, with the patient intending to return home as soon as hospitalization is no longer required. This is not to say that a health care facility cannot, under some circumstances, be a “residence.” For example, when an elderly person is unable to care for himself or herself, and is placed in a nursing home with no intention or prospect of returning to his or her prior home, the nursing home may well be the person’s new “residence.” Nevertheless, in this case, a representative of University Specialty Hospital testified that “[w]e are a chronic care facility, we are not a nursing home.” Moreover, it was stipulated that Dorothy Faya was competent during her hospitalizations, and the Circuit Court found that she wanted to and intended to return to her home in Catonsville.
Under the facts of this case, the Circuit Court was justified in concluding that Dorothy Faya did not “reside” at the respondent Hospital within the meaning of § 8-104(c) of the Estates and Trusts Article.
Chief Judge BELL and Judge BATTAGLIA join this dissent.

. The parties’ agreed statement of facts reads as follows:
"The various admissions during the period of time were as follows: 11-29-02 through 12-21-02, St. Agnes Hospital; 12-21-02 through 2-4-03, University Specialty Hospital; 2-4-03 through 2-8-03, Maryland General Hospital; 2-8-03 through 3-25-03, University Specialty Hospital; 3-25-03 through 3-26-03, Maryland General Hospital; 3-26-03 through 3-26-03, one day that was, University Specialty Hospital, patient admitted and discharged the same day; 3-26-03 through 3-27-03, Maryland General Hospital; 3-27-03 through 4-1-03, University Specialty Hospital; 4-1-03 through 4-2-03, University of Maryland Medical Center; 4-2-03 through 4-10-03, University Specialty Hospital; 4-10-03 through 4-15-03, Maryland General Hospital; 4-15-03 through 11-21-03, University Specialty Hospital. All of the above hospitals are located in Baltimore City.”

. Dorothy Faya's general admission orders to University Specialty Hospital, dated April 16, 2003, note that the goal of her stay was "[rehabilitation.'' On the admission order's checklist form, Ms. Faya’s physician indicated that she was "[ujnable to determine discharge plan at present,” bypassing the alternative options of "[djischarge to home after rehabilitation/treatment” or "[djischarge to long-term care facility.” Tellingly, there is no option on the hospital’s own form for long-term residential treatment at University Specialty Hospital.

. The majority opinion calls these notes "unduly optimistic,” but there is no indication whatsoever in the record that the remarks were undue at the time they were made. This is an extrapolation by the majority opinion not supported by the record.

. Maryland Rule 8-131(c) provides as follows:
"(c) Action tried without a jury. When an action has been tried without a jury, the appellate court will review the case on both the law and the evidence. It will not set aside the judgment of the trial court on the evidence unless clearly erroneous, and will give due regard to the opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses.”

. Section 8-103(a) provides as follows:
"§ 8-103. Limitation on presentation of claim.
(a) In general.—Except as otherwise expressly provided by statute with respect to claims of the United States and the State, all claims against an estate of a decedent, whether due or to become due, absolute or contingent, liquidated or unliquidated, founded on contract, tort, or other legal basis, are forever barred against the estate, the personal representative, and the heirs and legatees, unless presented within the earlier of the following dates:
(1) 6 months after the date of the decedent's death; or
(2) 2 months after the personal representative mails or otherwise delivers to the creditor a copy of a notice in the form required by § 7-103 of this article or other written notice, notifying the creditor that his claim will be barred unless he presents the claim within 2 months from the mailing or other delivery of the notice.”

. Thus, in Blount v. Boston, 351 Md. 360, 365, 718 A.2d 1111, 1114 (1998), quoting Bainum v. Kalen, 272 Md. 490, 496, 325 A.2d 392, 395-396 (1974), the Court acknowledged that we have " 'consistently held that the words "reside” or "resident” in a constitutional provision or *548statute ... would be construed to mean "domicile” unless a contrary intent be shown.' " Numerous cases before this Court have followed this practice. See, e.g., Oglesby v. Williams, 372 Md. 360, 373, 812 A.2d 1061, 1068 (2002); Stevenson v. Steele, 352 Md. 60, 64 n. 1, 720 A.2d 1176, 1177 n. 1 (1998); Roberts v. Lakin, 340 Md. 147, 153, 665 A.2d 1024, 1026 (1995).