PROVIDENCE - Two months before she died in 1912, an elderly Rhode Island woman signed a will with an unusual instruction: She wanted to donate $4,000 to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. In exchange, the hospital was to name a bed after her father and set it aside forever for free medical care for needy people referred by one of her favorite charities.
Ninety-three years later, an administrative assistant at Children's Friend & Service, an antipoverty group based in Providence, was digging through archives for the charity's upcoming 175th anniversary when she found documents about the gift of Louisa G. Lippitt, including a certificate for a "Permanent Free Bed in Rhode Island Hospital." Officials at Children's Friend said it was the first they had learned of the bequest. They believe that the hospital received Lippitt's $4,000 donation but never set aside a bed.
Now Children's Friend & Service is suing Rhode Island Hospital in state court to get it to honor the bequest. The charity, which served about 16,000 people last year, said it would have no difficulty finding clients who could use a free hospital bed and medical care as government budget cuts threaten subsidized health insurance for thousands of Rhode Islanders.
"There's a huge need," said David Caprio, executive director of Children's Friend. "I'm sure that we would have a waiting list of people that would be ready to use it."
Mark E. Swirbalus, a Boston lawyer representing Children's Friend, said that "as far as we know, the hospital never set aside a bed and never set aside the money." The $4,000, if conservatively invested by the hospital in 1912, would be worth about $1.5 million today, he said.
Lawyers for the 719-bed hospital have asked a judge to dismiss the suit, saying that Lippitt made the gift to Children's Friend Society and that Caprio's group did not come into existence until 1949.
Almost 95 years "after the bequest, the Plaintiff now contends for the first time that it has the right to appoint patients to the 'free bed,' " Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., a Providence lawyer defending the hospital, wrote on Feb. 5.
The complaint filed in Superior Court contends that Lippitt, believed to have been a descendant of one of Rhode Island's best-known Colonial families, made the gift in an era when Rhode Island Hospital was soliciting $4,000 donations. By 1923, the hospital had set aside 212 free beds in exchange for the gifts, the suit said.
Lippitt, who is believed to have been in her early 80s when she died, made the donation in the name of her late father, George Warren Hallett, according to the complaint. She specified that the leaders of the Children's Friend Society of Providence would have the right to refer patients to the hospital.
The agency has had no contact with Lippitt's descendants.
After it found the certificate, Children's Friend talked to the hospital about designating a bed for clients, who receive family counseling, crisis intervention, and childcare programs. But the two sides couldn't come to an agreement. Children's Friend filed suit in November.
In its motion to dismiss, Rhode Island Hospital contends that Children's Friend has existed as a legal entity only since 1949, even though the charity says it was founded in 1834. The hospital says that the suit should be dismissed under Rhode Island case law, even if Children's Friend is a successor agency to the Children's Friend Society.
Gail L. Carvelli - a spokeswoman for Lifespan, a healthcare system that includes Rhode Island Hospital - said yesterday that she could not discuss the specifics of the case. But she said the hospital has a longstanding commitment to charity care, providing millions of dollars a year in treatment to the needy. Carvelli also said the hospital has free beds as a result of donations but declined to say how many.
Children's Friend wants the hospital to designate the bed for sick parents of children served by the agency, Caprio said. About 94 percent of children in Rhode Island have health insurance, including thousands through the state's subsidized health insurance program, RIte Care. But many advocates for the poor fear that thousands of Rhode Islanders could lose health insurance under proposed government cuts aimed at closing an estimated $550 million state budget deficit.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.
