MARVIN MANDEL, Governor                             1699

CHAPTER 448
(House Bill 520)
AN ACT concerning

"Responsible Relative" — Redefined

FOR the purpose of changing the termination of a
relative's responsibility for the care and treatment
of a mentally retarded person from that mentally
retarded person's twenty—first birthday to his
eighteenth birthday.

BY repealing and re—enacting, with amendments.

Article 59A - Mental Retardation

Section 3 (n)

Annotated Code of Maryland

(1972 Replacement Volume and 1973 Supplement)

SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
MARYLAND, That Section 3(n) of Article 59A - Mental
Retardation, of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1972
Replacement Volume and 1973 Supplement) be and it is
hereby repealed and re-enacted, with amendments, to read
as follows:

Article 59A - Mental Retardation
3.

(n) "Responsible relative" means for the purpose of
reimbursement of cost of care and treatment, the spouse
of a mentally retarded person, parent or parents of a
mentally retarded person when the mentally retarded
person is under [21]18 years of age. No liability shall
be imposed by this definition on the spouse or child of
any patient who has been abandoned by that patient.
Abandonment as used herein shall be defined by the
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in accordance
with the Administrative Procedure Act.

SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this Act
is hereby declared to be an emergency measure and
necessary for the immediate preservation of the public
health and safety and having been passed by a yea and nay
vote supported by three—fifths of all the members elected