Opinion
42135 Record No. 6783.
December 6, 1968
Present, All the Justices.
Statutory Construction — Incorporation by Reference.
Judgment entered in court below by Department of Mental Hygiene and Hospitals subject to estate exemption of $2500. Estate exemption not provided by statute in effect at time action brought. Later statute incorporating provisions of earlier statute mutatis mutandis to later statute does not provide for retroactive application of provision added in later statute.
Error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Carroll County. Hon. Jack M. Matthews, judge presiding.
Modified, affirmed, and final judgment.
Raleigh M. Cooley for plaintiff in error.
No brief or argument for defendant in error.
The Department of Mental Hygiene and Hospitals brought this action against David Clyde Bedsaul's Committee under Code Sec. 37-125.5 (Supp. 1966) to recover expenses incident to Bedsaul's hospitalization at Southwestern State Hospital. The Circuit Court of Carroll County entered judgment for the Department, "subject to a total estate exemption of $2500.00". The sole issue on this appeal is whether an estate exemption is applicable to an action under Code Sec. 37-125.5.
In 1968 the General Assembly repealed Title 37 of the Code and enacted Title 37.1 in lieu thereof. Va. Acts of Assembly 1968, ch. 477
Although Code Sec. 37-125.5 contained no provision for an estate exemption, the Committee contended that the exemption provided for under Code Sec. 37-128 (Supp. 1966) applied to a judgment under Code Sec. 37-125.5.
Code Sec. 37-128, which permitted the department to recover the expenses of boarding a patient with a private family, provided that the patient's estate should not be depleted below $2,500. The last sentence of Code Sec. 37-128 provided: "The provisions of [Sections 37-125.1 -125.15] shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to collections authorized by this section [Sec. 37-128]."
The last sentence of Code Sec. 37-128 did not make the provisions of that section applicable to actions under Code Sec. 37-125.5; rather, that sentence made the provisions of Code Sections 37-125.1 -125.15 applicable mutatis mutandis to actions under Code Sec. 37-128. The trial court therefore erred in holding that the estate exemption applied to this action under Code Sec. 37-125.5. The judgment is modified accordingly.
Modified, affirmed, and final judgment.