A woman who transferred nearly $60,000 from her mother’s bank account won’t be held liable for nursing home fees not covered by Medicaid, according to a New Jersey appellate court ruling.
In the months after she moved to Liberty Royal Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in 2013, the nursing home resident applied for Medicaid coverage.
She was denied for a 224-day period because of a previous transfer of $58,618 to an account in her daughter’s name.
In reality, however, the daughter, referred to only as “M.D.” in some official documents had transferred the money in 2010 before she had became her mother’s power of attorney, claiming she’d done so because her father was showing signs of dementia and mismanaging the funds.
M.D. claimed she used the cash for her mother’s care, including to cover the costs of her mother’s condo and at-home care, before a fall precipitated her nursing home stay.
The daughter also signed her mother’s financial documents when the resident moved into Liberty, but only as the power of attorney and not as a guarantor.
Liberty’s owner, Future Care Consultants, sued the woman, arguing that the transfer was conversion.
But the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division said Future Care was never the owner of the funds in question and had no standing to bring such a case.
The ruling also noted there was no contract or other signed document between Future Care or M.D. that would have made M.D. a responsible payer.
The defendant “is not obligated to pay (the) balance out of defendant’s own funds and plaintiff’s argument is therefore devoid of any merit,” the court ruled.
The court also tossed a counter suit alleging Liberty violated the Nursing Home Act, citing the lack of any agreement between the parties.
From the August 2019 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
