|
KRS 404.040 Unconstitutional |
Upon motion for summary judgment, filed by Matthew S. Goeing and M. Stanley Goeing, the Clark District Court, in an order entered January 11, 2011, has ruled the following Kentucky Revised Statute unconstitutional based upon the Kentucky and the United States Constitutions.
404.040 Liability of husband for wife's debts.
The husband shall not be liable for any debt or responsibility of the wife contracted or incurred before or after marriage, except to the amount or value of the property he received from or by her by virtue of the marriage; but he shall be liable for necessaries furnished to her after marriage.
Effective: October 1, 1942
The case involved a hospital attempting to collect a debt for unpaid medical bills from a former patient's husband. The husband had not in any way agreed to be responsible for payment resulting from the medical services, nor was he even aware his wife had been receiving treatment at the hospital. The statute, as written, effectively required the husband to be responsible for the cost associated with "necessaries" incurred by his wife. The critical error with the statute involved the omission of a reciprocal requirement of the wife. The requirement that a husband be responsible for his wife's debts, without the same responsibility placed upon a wife for her husband's debt, was determined to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of Section 3 of the Kentucky Constitution and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Click the image below to view a pdf version of the court's order entered January 11, 2011.
|
404.040 
