Also known as: necessary service · necessaries
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Essential goods or services such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care for which one spouse or obligated party may be held liable to third-party providers. Liability arises when the recipient has need and the obligated party has ability to pay, independent of any agency relationship or express consent.
Luis refused to pay for any medical treatment for his pregnant wife Maria. A rural clinic provided prenatal and delivery services that were medically necessary. The clinic sued both spouses for the unpaid bills. Because the services qualified as necessary medical care and Luis had substantial land assets showing ability to pay, the court held Luis liable to the clinic under the spousal support obligation.
A state Medicaid program declined to cover certain medically necessary abortions for low-income women even though it funded other medically necessary services. Plaintiffs argued the distinction violated equal protection. The Court upheld the funding restriction because the government need not subsidize every medically necessary service even when it chooses to fund some.
The Medicaid program was created in 1965 when Congress added Title XIX to the Social Security Act to provide federal financial assistance to states that choose to reimburse certain costs of medical treatment for needy persons. Participation in the program is voluntary, but once a state elects to participate, it must comply with federal requirements including coverage of five general categories of medical services for the categorically needy. From the program's inception, federal funding was available for medically necessary abortions. In September 1976, Congress enacted the first version of the Hyde Amendment as part of the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except when the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term. Subsequent versions applicable to fiscal years 1977 through 1980 varied in scope. The 1980 version added exceptions for rape and incest reported promptly to law enforcement or a public health service. Earlier versions included or excluded an exception for severe and long-lasting physical health damage to the mother. On September 30, 1976, the day the initial Hyde Amendment was enacted, Cora McRae, a New York Medicaid recipient in the first trimester of a pregnancy she wished to terminate, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which operates hospitals providing abortion services, and other plaintiffs filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare seeking to enjoin enforcement of the funding restriction. The District Court certified the case as a class action on behalf of all pregnant or potentially pregnant women in New York eligible for Medicaid who decide to have an abortion within the first twenty-four weeks of pregnancy and all authorized providers of abortion services to such women. It entered a preliminary injunction. After this Court decided Beal v. Doe and Maher v. Roe, the District Court vacated the injunction and remanded for reconsideration. On remand, additional plaintiffs intervened, including four individual Medicaid recipients seeking medically necessary abortions, several physicians who perform abortions for Medicaid recipients, and the Women's Division of the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church along with two of its officers. An amended complaint challenged multiple versions of the Hyde Amendment on statutory and constitutional grounds. Following a lengthy trial that produced a record exceeding five thousand pages of transcript and more than four hundred exhibits, the District Court rejected the plaintiffs' statutory claim but held that the Hyde Amendment violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The court recertified the case as a nationwide class action on behalf of all pregnant and potentially pregnant women eligible for Medicaid who wish to have medically necessary abortions and all authorized providers of such abortions. It then ordered the Secretary to cease giving effect to the Hyde Amendment and to continue authorizing federal matching funds for medically necessary abortions. The Secretary appealed directly to this Court, which noted probable jurisdiction.
View caseA state bar association enforced a minimum fee schedule for title examinations that lawyers were required to follow. A client challenged the schedule as an antitrust violation. The Court treated the schedule as a restraint on the market for necessary legal services and held that the bar's enforcement constituted price fixing subject to Sherman Act scrutiny.
In 1971 petitioners, husband and wife, contracted to buy a home in Fairfax County, Virginia. The financing agency required them to secure title insurance, which in turn required a title examination that only a member of the Virginia State Bar could legally perform. Petitioners contacted a lawyer who quoted them the precise fee suggested in a minimum-fee schedule published by respondent Fairfax County Bar Association, amounting to one percent of the value of the property. They then sent letters to thirty-six other Fairfax County lawyers requesting their fees for the title examination. Nineteen replied, and none indicated that he would charge less than the rate fixed by the schedule. The fee schedule is a list of recommended minimum prices for common legal services. The County Bar is a purely voluntary association of attorneys with no formal power to enforce the schedule. Respondent Virginia State Bar is the administrative agency through which the Virginia Supreme Court regulates the practice of law, and membership is required to practice in the state. The State Bar published reports condoning fee schedules. It issued ethical opinions indicating that evidence an attorney habitually charges less than the suggested minimum fee schedule adopted by his local bar association raises a presumption that such lawyer is guilty of misconduct. Because petitioners could not find a lawyer willing to charge a fee lower than the schedule dictated, they had their title examined by the lawyer they had first contacted. They then brought this class action against the State Bar and the County Bar alleging that the operation of the minimum-fee schedule as applied to fees for legal services relating to residential real estate transactions constitutes price fixing in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act. After a trial solely on the issue of liability the district court held that the minimum-fee schedule violated the Sherman Act as to the County Bar but exempted the State Bar. The court of appeals reversed as to liability. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseYes. The duty of spousal support allows third-party providers to recover directly from the higher-earning spouse for necessary medical care furnished to the other spouse. Liability does not depend on the supporting spouse's express consent or agency authority.
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Only when the treatment is reasonable in cost and scope given the recipient's condition and available alternatives. A luxurious private program that a spouse expressly rejected as excessive is unlikely to qualify as a necessary for which the other spouse can be held liable.
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Yes. The necessaries doctrine permits direct recovery by providers of essential goods or services even when no separation or divorce proceeding has been filed. The claim rests on the marital support obligation rather than on any court-ordered alimony.
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Courts compare the expense to available public alternatives and assess whether the program provides essential developmental benefits unavailable elsewhere. When public preschool options exist and the private program is not shown to be uniquely required, the tuition may fall outside the necessaries category.
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…that the Hyde Amendment violates the equal protection guarantee because, in its view, the decision of Congress to fund medically necessary services generally but only certain medically necessary abortions serves no legitimate governmental interest. As to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the court held that insofar as a…