## Facts

- The State of California, through its Department of Mental Hygiene, sought reimbursement for the cost of caring for Dale W. Copus’s indigent, incompetent mother in a California state mental hospital.
- Copus was domiciled in California until July 16, 1951, then changed domicile to Texas and continuously resided there.
- Copus’s mother had long been, and remained, continuously institutionalized in a California state hospital during all relevant periods.
- California statutes imposed on an adult child a duty to reimburse the state for support furnished to an indigent parent in a state institution.
- The Director of Mental Hygiene set and adjusted the monthly rate for the mother’s care, including an increase to $90 per month effective August 1, 1951.
- California brought suit in Texas seeking recovery limited to amounts accruing within four years before suit, relying on a California limitations provision specific to state-hospital support claims.
- The Texas trial court awarded California the full amount sought; the court of civil appeals reversed and rendered that California take nothing; the Supreme Court of Texas granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas courts will enforce California’s statutory reimbursement obligation for support furnished while Copus was domiciled in California.
2. Whether Texas courts will enforce the same obligation for support accruing after Copus changed domicile to Texas.
3. Whether the applicable limitations period is California’s special four-year period for hospital-support reimbursement claims or Texas’s two-year period.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas affirmed in part and reversed in part the court of civil appeals.
- Texas would enforce California’s claim for reimbursement for support furnished while Copus was a California domiciliary, limited to amounts accruing within four years before suit.
- Texas would not enforce California’s claim for any amounts accruing after Copus became domiciled in Texas.
- California’s special four-year limitations provision governing state-hospital support reimbursement applied to the enforceable (pre-move) portion of the claim, rather than Texas’s two-year statute.

## Legal Principles

- A foreign statutory obligation that creates a civil, personal liability (as opposed to a penal sanction) may be enforced in Texas when not contrary to Texas public policy.
- A special limitations period that is tied to, and defines the temporal scope of, a statutory right may be treated as part of the substantive right and applied by the forum to that cause of action.
- Texas may refuse to enforce a foreign filial-support reimbursement duty as to amounts accruing after the obligor becomes a Texas domiciliary when prospective enforcement conflicts with Texas public policy and its approach to familial support duties.
- A forum may distinguish between enforcing an accrued obligation arising under the laws of the obligor’s former domicile and declining to give extraterritorial effect to that foreign regime after a change of domicile.

## Conclusion

Texas enforced California’s hospital-support reimbursement claim only to the extent it accrued while Copus was domiciled in California and within California’s four-year limitations period, but denied recovery for any support that accrued after Copus established domicile in Texas.


State of California v. Copus, 158 Tex. 196, 309 S.W.2d 227 (Tex. 1958)