Does a clause in a life care contract allow a plaintiff to sue a third party for the costs of medical care rendered by it to an elderly patient who is injured in a motor vehicle accident?

Applying the rule of these authorities and the definitions contained therein to the express language of PART SEVEN, [244 Cal.App.2d 271] C. ACTS OF THIRD PARTIES, it is at once apparent that the clause constitutes neither an assignment of a personal chose in action nor an equitable subrogation, for thereunder there is transferred no cause of action for personal injuries. In Fifield Manor v. Finston, 54 Cal.2d 632, 7 Cal.Rptr. 377, 354 P.2d 1073, 78 A.L.R.2d 813 plaintiff directly sued the third party tort feasor to recover the costs of medical care rendered by it to an aged person under a life care contract following an automobile accident. Plaintiff had no right to bring the action; the court held the contract between plaintiff and the aged person to be invalid insofar as it attempted to give plaintiff the right to sue the third party tort feasor on its own behalf. 'While subrogation and assignment have certain technical differences, each operates to transfer from one person to another a cause of action against a third, and the reasons of policy which make certain causes of action non-assignable would seem to operate as forcefully against the transfer of such causes of action by subrogation. * * *

'Whether the transfer be technically called assignment or subrogation or equitable

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