Mueller v. Mueller

127 Ala. 356
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedNovember 15, 1899
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 127 Ala. 356 (Mueller v. Mueller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mueller v. Mueller, 127 Ala. 356 (Ala. 1899).

Opinion

TYSON, J.

By the terms of the contract entered into between the appellant and her late husband, before their marriage, it was expressly agreed that he was to repay to her the twenty-five hundred dollars of money belonging to her whenever she required it. It was under this agreement that this money went into the possession of the husband. This antenuptial contract was executed by the husband and wife in the State of Louisiana, which was the domicile of the wife before her marriage. The domicile of the future husband, however, was in the State of - Illinois. They were each over the age of twenty-one years, and there is no -fact shown by the record impairing their capacity to enter into the contract. It is obvious from the language employed in it, that it was the intention of the parties to exclude the right of the husband by virtue of his marriage, by reducing the money to his possession, to become the owner of it. The purpose evidently was to settle precisely both of their ifights with respect to this particular fund. He was to become her debtor and she his creditor — a status which excluded his marital rights and fixed hers as owner of an equitable separate estate in a jurisdiction where the com-[361]*361moil law prevails; namely, the State of Illinois. That this was the purpose sought to he effectuated by the contract hardly admits of serious controversy. And especially is this true when we take into 'consideration the situation of the parties at the time of entering into it. In Louisiana where the civil law prevails, the money remained hers notwithstanding her marriage. 9 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 790; Story Eq., § 1367; 1 Barge L., 202. In Illinois, his domicile, where the common law prevails, and in which they contemplated living after the marriage, the money would have become his by reducing it to possession unless she protected her ownership of it by contract. This she had the right to do and did do. — 14 Am. & Eng. Encyc. Law, 539; 2 Brick. Dig. 72, § 51, and p. 81, § 164, et seq. The domicile of the wife follows that of the husband, and as the contract was made as a marriage contract and with a view to the laws of his domicile, it must be construed with reference to the laws of the State of Illinois. — Stewart on Husband & Wife, § 28 and note 6; also § 29 and notes; Glenn v. Glenn, 47 Ala. 204. And there being no evidence in the record of any statute regulating the property of married women in Illinois, we will presume that the common law prevails there.

Whig the character of her estate changed by the acquisition of a domicile in this State after marriage? In short, did her equitable separate estate become a statutory estate by reason of their becoming residents of this State? This question was answered in the negative in the case of Cahalan v. Monroe, 70 Ala. 271, where it was held that the act of bringing property, into this State after the husband’s marital rights had attached in South Carolina, under the common law, which was presumed to prevail there, could not operate to change its status or ownership. The case of Castleman v. Jeffries, 60 Ala. 380, was there held not to apply. The same answer was .given in Drake v. Glorer, 30 Ala. 382, where it was said: “It is unquestionably the law that whatever title Mrs. Drake may have acquired in Louisiana, while she and her husband [362]*362were domiciled in that State, would be unimpaired by the change of the matrimonial domicile and the removal of the -property to this State.”

In Doss v. Campbell, 19 Ala. 590, it was again held, that the laws of the State in which the marriage is celebrated govern the rights of each party to the property of the other, this too without any -contract in reference to the ownership of the property, and their subsequent removal to another State only affects property afterwards acquired. Therefore, when the marriage was celebrated in Texas, by the laws of which the husband acquires no interest in his wife’s property by marriage, the subsequent removal of the parties with their property -to this State does not subject the wife’s property to the payment of his debts. To the same effect.is Irwin v. Bailey, 72 Ala. 467.

It-is'true that this contract was executed in Louisiana in 1887, subsequent to the passage of the act of February 28, 1887, which repealed preexisting statutes creating and regulating the separate estates of married women and introduced a new system, enlarging the interest of the wife and her capacity to sue and her liability to be sued, and annulled the title of the husband as trustee of his wife, etc. But this statute has no extraterritorial force and cannot have any influence upon the status of the wife as to ownership of property under a contract made in Louisiana with reference* to the laws of Illinois. Nor did the bringing of the chose in action owned by the wife as her equitable separate estate into this State any more affect- her right to it as. an equitable separate estate, than was the status or ownership affected in the cases above quoted from and cited by the general statutes of this State in force at that time. The change of domicile cannot and -does not-affect her rights which were already vested by virtue of the contract under the laws of her first matrimonial domicile. — Stewart on H. & W., § 32 and note 3.

There is no contention that this contract offends the laws of the forum and therefore invalid in this State, notwithstanding it was efficacious and valid in the State of Illinois. Indeed, no such contention could be made [363]*363with any show of merit. -The husband died without repaying tliis money which went into his hands under this contract, and the appellant, his widow, recovered a judgment for it against hi® administrator, which was paid to her out of the assets of his estate. The money so collected, as we have shown, being her equitable separate estate by contract, could not have been deducted in any event from her distributive share in her husband’s estate. It is the statutory estate, that the statutes (§§ 1506, 1507) authorize to be deducted from her distributive share. — Harris v. Harris, 71 Ala. 536 ; Huckabee v. Andrews, 34 Ala. 646; Smith v. Smith, 30 Ala. 642.

It appears that appellant’s husband, whose estate is being administered, died without children or their descendants, but leaving'several sisters, a mother, and this appellant, his wife. He owned no real estate at the time of his death, and his estate consists of personal property of the value of |4,100. Under subdivision 3 of the statute of descent (§ 1453 of Code), the real estate of persons dying intestate descends, subject to the payment of debts, charges against the estate and the widow’s dower, if there'are no .children or their descendants, and if there be but one surviving parent, then one-lialf to such surviving parent, and the other half to the brothers and sisters of the intestate or their descendants, in equal parts. Under the provisions of section 1462, the personal estate of persons dying intestate as to such estate, after the payment of debts and charges against the estate, is to be distributed in the same manner a>s his real estate and according to the same rules; except that the imdow, if there are no children, is entitled to all the personal estate, or if but one child, she is entitled to one-half ; if more than one and not more than four children, to a child’s part; and if more than four children tó one-fifth. It is plain that as to personalty where there are no children if there is a wife, she takes the entire estate.

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Bluebook (online)
127 Ala. 356, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mueller-v-mueller-ala-1899.