Magid v. Beaver

196 S.E. 422, 185 Ga. 669, 1938 Ga. LEXIS 511
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMarch 9, 1938
DocketNo. 12095
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 196 S.E. 422 (Magid v. Beaver) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Magid v. Beaver, 196 S.E. 422, 185 Ga. 669, 1938 Ga. LEXIS 511 (Ga. 1938).

Opinion

Grice, Justice.

This case in its essence is determined by the proper application to the facts of the law embodied in the Code, § 53-503, as follows: “The wife is a feme sole as to her separate estate, unless controlled by the settlement. Every restriction upon her power in it must be complied with; but while the wife may contract, she may not bind her separate estate by any contract of suretyship nor by any assumption of the debts of her husband, and any sale of her separate estate, made to a creditor of her husband in extinguishment of his debts, shall be absolutely void.” Unless the agreement here challenged is one forbidden by the terms of the statute above quoted, the directed verdict in favor of the creditor was right, because a married woman is a feme sole as to her separate estate with the exception of the restrictions imposed by this section. Comer v. Allen, 72 Ga. 1, 13; McCrory v. Grandy, 92 Ga. 319, 327 (18 S. E. 65); Nelms v. Keller, 103 Ga. 745, 746 (30 S. E. 572). The form in which the transaction takes place makes no difference, if its effect is to pledge her property or her credit for a purpose forbidden by the statute. Sutton v. Aiken, 62 Ga. 733, 740, 741; Gross v. Whitely, 128 Ga. 79, 82 (57 S. E. 94). The plaintiff in error in her plea sets up, among other things, that the note and loan deed which are the basis of the suit were for the purpose of meeting an obligation and debt of her husband, and that it was a contract of suretyship. In the opinion of the Court of Appeals the following statement is quoted from a former opinion of that court in Jordan v. Douglas Grocery Co., 27 Ga. App. 296 (108 S. E. 139) : “The very essence of a contract of suretyship is that there should be some one liable as principal. This necessarily contemplates that where such a note is given there must be at least two parties who signed it and are liable for the payment thereof, the principal and the surety.” Also cited in this connection are Saxon v. National City Bank of Rome, 169 Ga. 784, 788 (151 S. E. 501), and Meeks v. Withers, 181 Ga. 787, 794 (184 S. E. 604). The Jordan case did not present a state of [676]*676facts wherein the wife signed a note payable to a creditor of the husband whose debt was already in existence, the note and mortgage in that case being given for the purchase of a store and goods. In the Saxon case Mr. Justice Hill, in delivering the opinion observed that “A case very similar in its facts to the present is that of Jordan v. Douglas Grocery Co.” (supra), and then he quoted from the opinion in the Jordan case the excerpt which we have quoted from it above.

In the Saxon case the wife borrowed the money from the bank, the bank not being a creditor of the husband, and the money which it loaned her was not used to pay any debt of the husband. The opinion in the Meeks case contains the same quotation as that set out above from the Jordan case. That was a case where the wife filed a petition to enjoin the sale of certain realty under a mortgage executed by her alone, and to have declared void and canceled two promissory notes held by Withers. In the opinion it is recited that “She merely says ‘I thought I had signed as security for one hundred dollars.’” And then Mr. Justice Gilbert adds: “She does not say that she understood that her husband or any one else was to sign as principal.” The money she received did not go to benefit any creditor of her husband. In both the Saxon case and the Meeks case the quotation from the Jordan case seems to have been used more in the nature of argument for the conclusion reached by the court; and neither the Saxon nor the Meeks case is a full-bench decision. Suppose, however, the transaction was not one of technical suretyship. A married woman can not in any other form bind her separate estate contrary to the restriction imposed by the statute, though the method be attempted by indirection. Mr. Justice Evans’ deliverance in the case of Gross v. Whitely, supra, is squarely in point: “It is not open to dispute that these Code sections [Code of 1910, §§ 2488, 2474 (1933 §§ 53-503 and 53-502)] absolutely deny the liability of the wife on a note executed by her as surety for a principal who also signs the note. In this kind of a transaction the wife attempts to bind her separate estate by indirection. By signing the note as surety she assumes a liability which, but for the statute, could be reduced to judgment, and its payment enforced against her separate estate by execution. If the wife can not bind her separate estate generally by entering into a contract of suretyship, surely she can not [677]*677bind a specific portion of her separate property by hypothecating it to pay another’s debt. The ease of Klink v. Boland, 72 Ga. 485, holds that one can not take property belonging to the wife as security for a credit sale made to the husband. If the debt is the husband’s the wife can not assume its payment, either by promising to pay the debt as a surety, or by pledging her property to pay it. It is not the form of suretyship, nor whether the liability as surety is general, or only limited to the value of the pledged separate estate, which the law condemns. The spirit and purpose of the statute is to prevent the appropriation of the wife’s property to the payment of a secondary or collateral liability.” And see, in this connection, Strauss v. Friend, 73 Ga. 782; King v. Thompson, 59 Ga. 380; National Bank of Athens v. Carlton, 96 Ga. 469, 470 (23 S. E. 388); Milton v. Setze, 146 Ga. 26 (90 S. E. 469).

The rule that the wife may upon her own responsibility and voluntarily enter into a contract for borrowing money and giving her note therefor, and that such contract will be binding on her although the party with whom she contracts may know that she intends to use the borrowed money for her husband’s benefit (Johnson v. Leffler Co., 122 Ga. 670, 50 S. E. 488; Braswell v. Federal Land Bank of Columbia, 165 Ga. 123, 139 S. E. 861, and cit.), is not without exceptions. One exception arises in that class of cases where the contract is based on a mere colorable transaction to which the lender is a party, the purpose of which is to make the wife, to all practical intents and purposes, the husband’s surety. Williamson v. Walker, 183 Ga. 320 (188 S. E. 346); Freeman v. Mutual Building & Loan Asso., 90 Ga. 190 (15 S. E. 758); Simmons Hardware Co. v. Timmons, 180 Ga. 531 (3), (4) (179 S. E. 726); Johnson v. Leffler Co., supra; Veal v. Hurt, 63 Ga. 728. Compare Exchange Bank of Valdosta v. Newton, 23 Ga. App. 792 (2) (99 S. E. 705); Lee v. Johnston, 162 Ga. 560 (2) (134 S. E. 166); Central Bank & Trust Cor. v. Almand, 135 Ga. 231 (69 S. E. 111); Summers v. Lee, 10 Ga. App. 441 (2) (73 S. E. 602). Another exception is found in those instances where the lender is the husband’s creditor who is to be paid, and is a party to an arrangement or scheme between the husband and wife, of which the borrowing of the money by her for the purpose of paying the debts of the husband is the outcome.

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196 S.E. 422, 185 Ga. 669, 1938 Ga. LEXIS 511, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/magid-v-beaver-ga-1938.