The North Carolina Court of Appeals rules that a state law limiting the amount of time that creditors have to present their notice of claim to an estate's personal representative does not bar an estate recovery claim filed after the time period has expired. North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services v. Thompkins (N.C. Ct. App., No. 09 CVS 5687, July 6, 2010).
Sallie Dye Anthony died in 2004 after receiving $52,575 in Medicaid services. A year later, Anna Marie Thompkins, the future personal representative of Ms. Anthony's estate, contacted the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and asked about the process for resolving the estate's debt, although she did not submit payment. When Ms. Anthony's estate was finally admitted to probate in 2008, Ms. Thompkins published a notice to Ms. Anthony's creditors, but she did not send a notice directly to DHHS. The estate distributed Ms. Anthony's assets and Ms. Thompkins' final account was approved. On the day the account was approved, DHHS sent a claim for reimbursement to Ms. Thompkins through the clerk of the Superior Court. Ms. Thompkins refused to pay the claim because it had not been filed within the statutory time limits placed on creditors of estates.
DHHS sued the estate, and Ms. Thompkins asserted the statutory time bar as an affirmative defense. DHHS filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the time limits in the statute do not explicitly include the state's claims and were therefore barred by the doctrine of nullum tempus occurritt regi. The trial court granted the state's motion and Ms. Thompkins appealed, arguing that the wording of the statute, which specifically exempts "tax claims of the State of North Carolina" from the time limits, means that all other state claims are included in the time limitation.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals upholds the trial court's decision. The court says that "[t]he fundamental problem with [Ms. Thompkins'] argument is that it rests upon an inference of inclusion, rather than an express inclusion . . . Given the General Assembly's failure to explicitly subject the state to the bar created by [the statute], we conclude under these facts that the trial court correctly determined that the 'doctrine of nullum tempus occurritt regi exempts the State from any statute of limitations defense . . . ' "
For the full text of this decision, go to: https://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/public/coa/opinions/2010/pdf/091137-1.pdf
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