Simonsen v. Bremby

Dawn Simonsen (plaintiff), a 57-year-old quadriplegic, was a resident of the Hospital for Special Care requiring ventilator care since October 2013. Simonsen had received Medicaid benefits from the Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS) to pay for her care since March 2014, but her benefits were terminated in June 2015 based on DSS’s determination that she was ineligible. The determination was based upon the classification of two former trusts of which Simonsen was beneficiary. Simonsen’s mother, Joy A. Miller, had established the Dawn Simonsen GST Trust and the Dawn Simonsen Residuary Trust (predecessor trusts). The trusts were established in Florida and funded upon Miller’s death in April 2003. The trusts provided that the trustee would pay Simonsen, or use for her benefit, the income and principal as the trustee deemed necessary and advisable for her health, reasonable comfort, education, and best interests, considering the fact that she had a substance-abuse problem and that Miller did not want the funds to be used for that purpose. An application for Medicaid benefits for Simonsen was made in July 2014, and in August 2014, the trustee requested an order from the probate court that the trustee could invade the principal as necessary and transfer, or decant, the assets in the predecessor trusts to two new trusts called the Dawn Simonsen Third Party Special Needs Trust I and Trust II (successor trusts). The probate court granted the order, and the predecessor trusts’ combined value of over $1,000,000 was transferred to the successor trusts in November 2014. DSS issued a final-decision notice to the effect that because of the trust-to-trust transfer, there would be a penalty period from September 1, 2014, to September 5, 2021, during which time DSS would not pay for Simonsen’s long-term care. Simonsen sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent DSS commissioner Roderick L. Bremby (defendant) from treating the trusts as available resources in determining her eligibility for Medicaid when they were decanted to the successor trusts and from treating that decanting as disqualifying transfers of assets.