When Louisa Lippitt died in 1912, she left $4,000 to Rhode Island Hospital on the condition the money be set aside for the purpose of providing a permanent free bed for needy patients.
A successor to the charity that she selected to administer her gift discovered her bequest when it was digging through its archives, and found that the free bed is long gone. Now, the charity, Children’s Friend and Service is suing the hospital to get the health care bequest back.
The hospital claims that it already provides millions of dollars in free care, but the charity said the hospital needs to do more to fulfill the pledge that it made 96 years ago when Lippitt made her donation.
If it had been modestly invested, Swirbalus said, Lippitt’s donation might be worth about $1.5 million today.
On Tuesday, a judge will hear arguments on the from the hospital, which filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In their defense, Hospital officials say interest from funds continue to help cover health care costs for people who can’t afford them, though not through a specific hospital bed.
A hospital spokesperson said the money donated for free beds was put into a restricted account that pays for charity care, but she could not say how much was in that account or how much of its funds are spent annually.
Children’s Friend does not expect the hospital to set aside a bed that would be available only to the their clients. Rather, they want to ensure that its clients receive free care in whatever bed they’re treated.
The hospital also argues that Children’s Friend and Service does not have standing to sue because it did not even exist when Lippitt died and is separate from the charity she named in her will, Children’s Friend Society of Providence. Children’s Friend and Service claims that it is a successor of that group - called Providence Children’s Friend Society - and inherited its right to nominate patients when it formed in the late 1940s.
The executive director of Children’s Friend said the group discovered paperwork on Lippitt’s free bed while going through their archives several years ago in preparation for an anniversary celebration.
The charity sued in November after negotiations stalled over whether the charity had the right to nominate patients to Lippitt’s bed.
Other lawsuits have been filed in the past over how hospitals have spent their free bed funds, one of them by the state of Connecticut. In that 2003 lawsuit, which is still pending, it was alleged that Yale-New Haven Hospital hoarded about $37 million in donated funds.
1 comment so far ↓
The hospital clearly has some claim in that it meets certain standards for providing charity care. The proper move here for both parties is to use that money to establish some initiative that helps solve some core chronic health care problems in the community. Instead of spending thousands in court, reinvest in a mutually acceptable initiative for both parties that still calls attention to the original gift made.
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