Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Texas

My wife, Carol, died on June 21, 2010. She battled Stage 3A breast cancer for almost exactly 8 years; finally succumbing last year.

Insurance from my former employer paid for the lion's share of her cancer treatments. She had a Discover credit card in her name, which had a $5,000+ balance. I was not a co-signer or connected to the card in any way.

When Discover went into arrears after Carol's death, they called and left a message. I called them back and I told them that Carol had died. They asked for a Death Certificate to be sent to them, which I did. As a result of the conversation the woman from Discover said that she would recommend that the balance be written off, but they would look for undisclosed assets for a while. If they found any such assets, they never told me about them.

It's been over a year since I had that conversation with Discover, so, I'm guessing that they found nothing, and as a result of their exhaustive seach they decided to write off the account. I've received no correspondence from them confirming that, but why would I? I wasn't on that account.

During Carol's treatments, she required numerous scans, test and the like from various laboratories. They, too, started calling when Carol's accounts with them went into arrears. In all these cases Carol was the patient. I never signed anything obligating me to pay any bills that her tests incurred. To an entity they all wrote off any balance that she owed. One collection agency demanded that I pay the outstanding debt balance from some lab. I called the lab that the collection agency said that they were working for to confirm the service type and dates. I called two labs with similar names that provided similar services. One lab said that they didn't use the collection agency that had contacted me. The other lab said they had no record of ever providing any service for Carol. When I called the collection agency back and told them what I'd learned, suddenly they were more receptive to writing-off the amount owed. My guess is that they were scammers of some kind bogus operation which had somehow acquired just enough correct-sounding names, labs, dates, etc to create an 'outstanding' bill that sounded like it could be plausible. They never contacted me again.

Credit cards that Carol and I shared jointly as I was the primary on those cards, and I am paying them down and ultimately off.

The only health service entity which I've had trouble with was Baylor Garland (in Texas). Carol was their patient, not me and again I never signed anything that said I'd be responsible for paying anything over what insurance did not pay for. While Carol was still alive, we made regular payment to them from my retirement income and in her last year of life from her Social Security income. I was not in a frame of mind to talk with them much less argue with them. (I was angry with Baylor Garland because of nearly killing her in May 2010, mostly due to an inept nursing staff in a biopsy recovery room, but that's another issue which is not germane to this query.) When I did contact Baylor Garland I told them that Carol was their patient not me. They told me that the family of a deceased patient was responsible for any outstanding balance. I told them that that just didn't sound ethically or legally correct.

I cited the facts that every other medical service entity had written off anything that their patient, Carol, owed. I cited the fact that Discover credit card's collections dept had written off more than what she owed.

Today, I received a letter from Baylor Garland stating that I was obligated, in the opinion of their legal dept, to pay what debt their patient, Carol, had incurred and was still outstanding at the time of her death.

They cited Texas is a community property state and sent blurbs from what they believe are pertinent sections, specifically

Section 3.202 of the Family Code they quote the code, "The community property subject to a spouse's sole or joint management, control, and disposition is subject to the liabilities by the spouse before or during the marriage."

Sounds like that's talking about property that we owned jointly and that I'd still be responsible for property tax liability, for instance. If this applies to debts why did every other medical service entity and Discover card write off any outstanding debts that Carol as their patient/customer had incurred and still owed at the time of her death?

They also quoted Section 156 of the Texas Probate Code, "The community property subject to the sole or joint management, control and disposition of a spouse during marriage control, and disposition of a spouse during marriage continues to be subject to the liabilities of that spouse after death."

Both of these sections sound like they consider debt to be property.

What's your take on this and my obligations?

Lee

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