1. What is the historical policy basis for the modern rule that minors’ contracts are voidable; and what is the basis for the exception that minors may be liable for necessaries?

2. In layperson’s terms, explain the public policy utilized to support the court’s decision to hold Ms. Schmidt liable for the unpaid emergency care provided to her while she was a minor.

3. What is the dissent’s view of the case?

On March 7, 1997, 16-year-old Michelle Schmidt was involved in a two-vehicle auto collision. She was transported to the Shock Trauma Unit at Prince George’s Hospital, where she was initially admitted as “Jane Doe,” without an emergency contact person or telephone number, because she was unconscious at the time of arrival. Although the hospital later was able to identify her name and address, it was only able to determine that her father was “Mr. Schmidt,” and it obtained a telephone number for him. Due to the severity of her injuries sustained in the collision, the hospital provided necessary emergency medical care for a brain concussion and an open scalp wound. As of her discharge on March 8, 1997, she had incurred hospital expenses in the amount of $1,756.24. Ms. Schmidt was insured with personal injury protection (PIP) benefits through her father’s insurance company, Erie Insurance Group. Erie issued a check in the amount of $1,756.24 to “Lewis A. Schmidt for Minor, Michelle Schmidt” in reference to “Prince George’s Hospital Center, Service Date 03-07-1997 to 03-08-1997.” The check was negotiated, but the funds were not used to pay the hospital; rather, the funds apparently were used to purchase a replacement automobile for Ms. Schmidt. After Ms. Schmidt attained her eighteenth birthday and failed to pay the hospital, it brought suit against her. From a judgement for the hospital, she appealed to the seven justice Court of Appeals.

JUDICIAL OPINION

HARRELL, J.…

A.

In the absence of a statute to the contrary, the prevailing modern rule is that a minor’s contracts are voidable; nevertheless, it also is well established that a minor may be liable for the value of necessaries furnished to him or her. This doctrine, eponymously referred to as the doctrine of necessaries, is well recognized in Maryland law. In Monumental Building Association v Herman, 33 Md. 128, (1870), our venerable predecessor explained somewhat the breadth and application of this doctrine. By the common law, persons, under the age of twentyone years* are not bound by their contracts, except for necessaries, nor can they do any act, to the injury of their property, which they may not avoid, when arrived at full age. … Infants have this indulgence from their supposed want of judgment in their transactions with others, and the law takes this care of them to prevent them from being imposed upon, or overreached by persons of more years and experience.

They are allowed to contract for their benefit with power in most cases, to recede from their contract when it may prove prejudicial to them, but in their contract for necessaries, such as board, apparel, medical aid, teaching and instruction, and other necessaries, they are absolutely bound, and may be sued and charged in execution; but it must appear that the things were absolutely necessary, and suitable to their circumstances, and whoever trusts them does so at his peril, or as it is said, deals with them at arms’ length. Their power, thus to contract for necessaries, is for their benefit, because the procurement of these things is essential to their existence, and if they were not permitted so to bind themselves they might suffer. Monumental, 33 Md. at 131–32 (emphasis added).…

The rationales underlying [named precedent cases] recognize that public policy and justice demand that an injured minor have the right to recover incurred medical expenses from a third-party tortfeasor, where the child’s parents are unable or unwilling to pay for those expenses, because the medical provider may sue to recover them, either during the child’s minority or within the statute of limitations after the child has reached the age of majority. By parity of reasoning, it would seem that such a child, upon attaining adulthood, may be liable in contract to pay for medical necessaries provided to him or her while a minor, if the parents were unable or unwilling to pay for such necessaries. Before we may reach such a holding, however, it seems prudent to examine how, if at all, our sister states regard the unwillingness prong of this aspect of the doctrine of necessaries.

B.

There appears to be no case elsewhere that supplies a user-friendly, all-purpose definition or scope of the term “unwilling to pay” in connection with the doctrine of necessaries. The vast majority of these cases share two common traits; they are bereft of detailed or substantive analysis of the “unwillingness” standard, and the varying outcomes are largely fact-driven.…

Some states appear to hold that, in order to find a parent “unwilling,” thus making a child liable for his or her necessaries, a court should require hard and fast proof of default by the parents. Those states note that in order to meet the requirement of “unwilling,” it must be shown that a parent was billed and/or sued and still refused to pay. We shall not subscribe to that requirement as an essential prerequisite to a finding of unwillingness.

There are a significant number of states that interpret their version of the doctrine of necessaries as placing liability………………………..