Farrell v. Patterson

43 Ill. 52
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1867
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 43 Ill. 52 (Farrell v. Patterson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Farrell v. Patterson, 43 Ill. 52 (Ill. 1867).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Breese

delivered the opinion of the Court:

This record presents a case of the trial of the right of property in certain goods and chattels levied on by the sheriff of Perry county, by virtue of two executions in his hands issued out of the Circuit Court of that county, the one in favor of William. F. Enders & Co., and the other in favor of ¡Nicholas Patterson, and both against Joseph Farrell. The claimant of the property, as against both executions, was Sarah Ann Farrell, the wife of Joseph Farrell, the execution debtor. The sheriff’s jury found the property to be in the claimant, Sarah Ann Farrell. An appeal was prayed for by both the execution creditors to the Circuit Court. Patterson filed the appeal bond required by the statute. Enders & Co. failed to file a bond. The papers coming into the Circuit Court by this appeal, the clerk docketed the cause “ Sarah Ann Farrell, against W. F. Enders & Co.” ■ On motion of the claimant, the appellant here, the court dismissed the appeal of Enders & Co., and thereupon, Patterson asked and obtained leave to docket his appeal, which being done, a rule was obtained against the sheriff requiring him to file the transcript of the proceedings before him on the trial of the right of property as against Patterson’s execution.

To this appellant objected, insisting, that, inasmuch as Enders & Co. had failed to file an appeal bond, Patterson’s appeal should be dismissed, as he was a party to the trial of the right of property and but one appeal could be taken, and as one was taken by Enders & Co. and not completed by filing a bond, Patterson’s appeal must also be dismissed. To be more particular, the reasons assigned for dismissing the appeal were: first, because the sheriff had two executions against Joseph Farrell, one in favor of Enders & Co. and the other in favor of Patterson, and he levied both executions on the same property which was claimed by Sarah Ann Farrell, and the trial of the right of property before him was for the property claimed by the said Sarah Ann Farrell which was levied on by virtue of both the executions, and was tried together; second, because Enders & Go. did not join in the appeal; third, because- all the parties interested, and who appeared before the sheriff upon the trial of the right of property, did not join in the appeal; fourth, because this is another and different cause from that tried by the sheriff’s jury; fifth, because it is too late now, for the first time, to separate the trial on said executions, and make out of said trial before the sheriff, two cases, one, Sarah Arm Farrell v. W. F. Enders & Co., and the other, Sarah Ann Farrell v. Nicholas Patterson.

These reasons failed to influence the Circuit Court, and we think properly, and the motion to dismiss Patterson’s appeal was denied.

Patterson was not in the same boat with Enders & Co., nor did his fate depend on that of the latter. If, for convenience, the trial before the sheriff’s jury was carried on, as one suit, still Patterson was an independent party to that suit, and his rights in no degree mixed up with those of Enders & Co. TTis case was his own, which he could take by appeal to the Circuit Court without any regard to the action of Enders & Co. in the matter. Under the circumstances of this case, each execution creditor, should there be a score of them, would have an independent right of appeal. Neither one could be prejudiced by the act of another.

An exception was also taken to the rejection of the will of L. Sappington, as an instrument of evidence. It is admitted by appellant’s counsel, that the will was not properly authenticated, consequently it was not admissible for any purpose as evidence in the cause.

Upon the point that the court refused to admit evidence of the dismissal of the appeal we have only to say, we are at a loss to perceive wherein such evidence was pertinent. The fact that Enders’ appeal had been dismissed had nothing to do with Patterson’s case, and therefore the court properly ruled it out.

Disposing of these preliminary questions, the one remaining arises out of the construction to be given to the act of 1861, to protect married women in their separate property, in force, April 24,1861.

We have before considered this act, and put a construction upon it, so far as the right of a married woman to sue in her own name for her separate property was involved, in Emerson y. Clayton, 32 Ill. 493, and so far as her earnings were involved, in the case of Bear v. Hays, 36 id. 280.

It is insisted by appellant’s counsel that there are four distinct classes of property mentioned in that act to be affected by its provisions,—first, all the property, both real and personal, belonging to any married woman, as her sole and separate property, at the time of the passage of the act; second, all the property which any woman who may marry after the passage of the act owns at the time of her marriage; third, all the property which any married woman during her coverture acquires in good faith from any person other than her husband, by descent, devise or otherwise, together, fourth, with all the rents, issues, increase and profits of the three before mentioned kinds of property, and that the same remains, notwithstanding her marriage, during her coverture, her sole and separate property, under her sole control, and to be held, owned, possessed and enjoyed by her as though she was sole and unmarried, and not subject to the disposal, control or interference of her husband, and is exempt from execution or attachment for the debts of her husband.

This classification does not differ much from that made by this court in the case of Rose et at. v. Sanderson, 38 Ill. 247. In that case it was the opinion of this court that but three classes of cases were provided for by that act, viz.: First, for property belonging to any married woman as her sole and separate property at the time when the law was passed or took effect; second, for the property of women thereafter to be married; and third, for property thereafter to be acquired by married women. We said in that case that this act designed to clothe married women for the future, that is from and after the time it took effect, with the exclusive title to and dominion over their own property, and, as an incident thereto, to protect it from execution or attachment for the debts of the husband.

We are at a loss to perceive under which of these three classes the claim of the appellant, so urgently pressed by her counsel, can be arranged, since, by the proofs in the cause, she was married in 1848 or 1849, many years prior to the passage of the act of 1861, and the large sums of money testified to by her relatives, the Sappingtons, came to her years before the enactment of the law in question. These moneys, then, by force of well known and long established principles of law governing marital relations, became the property of the hus> band, and the chattels purchased with it became his likewise. The statute of 1861 never was designed to take from the husband that which belonged to him as a consequence of the marriage, nor could it do so without violating those principles of right and justice no legislature has ever, knowingly and of purpose, disregarded and ignored. All the well recognized presumptions arising from the marital relation with respect to the title to property of the wife still remain, notwithstanding this statute.

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Bluebook (online)
43 Ill. 52, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farrell-v-patterson-ill-1867.