Court Opinion

ID: 9730110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:01:34.616128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:04.293980
License: Public Domain

Grimes, J.,

dissenting:

I agree that under RSA 8:43 the State may recover from the estate of a specified relative only if the “weekly income and other resources” of the deceased were “more than sufficient to provide a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health” ( s. 41). There is no suggestion that the deceased did not manage to have a “reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health” during the entire period during which his daughter was confined to the hospital.
Whatever may have been the probabilities of his being able to do this within his “income or other resources” viewed prospectively, the evidence before us viewed in retrospect establishes the cold, hard fact that he did do it. During the period of his daughter’s confinement, his savings account, after payment of his wife’s last sickness and funeral expenses, increased from $8,991.70 to $9,975.56. This alone conclusively demonstrates that he had “more than sufficient” income and “other resources” to meet the test of chargeability without considering the availability of whatever cash surrender value his insurance policies had during his lifetime and the $213 cash on hand at his death.
I cannot believe the Legislature intended that in deciding the question of chargeability in a suit against an estate we should ignore what has actually transpired, or that it intended that the State would be barred from recovering under the circumstances of this case. I therefore most respectfully dissent.