Williams v. Whitmore

1 Shan. Cas. 239
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedApril 15, 1872
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 1 Shan. Cas. 239 (Williams v. Whitmore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Whitmore, 1 Shan. Cas. 239 (Tenn. 1872).

Opinion

Freeman, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The purpose of the original, the amended and supplemental bills in tbis case is to enforce tbe collection of balance due on certain notes given by defendant, and ber then husband, Joshua Whitmore, of date 7th of January, 1860.

Three of these notes are for the sum, respectively, of $10,333, due January 1st, 1861, .1862, and 1863, with interest at the rate of ten per cent, from the time due until paid. kThe other is for $10,346, due one day after date, •.and was expected to he paid in a short time when given' — ■ in fact, was considered as part of the cash payment of $20,-000, and upwards, which was to be paid on receiving possession of tbe property purchased, and fox which all the notes were given. This property consisted of a large and valuable farm in Arkansas, with stores, stock, farming fixtures', [242]*242and utensils purchased by Whitmore and wife, but which was evidently considered as purchase for the wife, the present defendant, and probably conveyed to her. To-secure the balance after the cash payment of $10,000 in money, and the $10,346 note, to' wit, the three notes above described, a deed of trust was executed by Whitmore and wife to John W. Williams, with power to- sell the property and appropriate the proceeds to' pay these notes, if not paid. This deed of trust conveyed all the property purchased.

The ground on which the complainant goes, taking the original and supplemental bills together, is simply that the defendant had a separate estate, and had charged the same with the payment of these notes. To enforce this supposed liability of said separate estate is the first object of this.litigation. On the one hand, it is insisted that Mrs. Whitmore had the power to charge her separate estate, and has,-,done so; on the other, it is maintained she neither had the power, nor has agreed to. do so.

On the question of the powers of a feme covert holding a separate property, there has been, as is well known, a diversity of judicial opinion both in England and America. The rule established at present in the English courts of chancery is, that in respect to her separate estate, she is to bo regarded as a feme sole with all the powers that belong to that character, and that her note or bond, as such, will bind her separate property. See Leading Cases in Eq., vol. 1st, top p., 504, 519, 528; note to Hulme v. Tenant.

In enforcing remedies against such estate, however, no personal decree, even in England, is made against the married woman, but only against her estate. Erancis v. Wig-gen, 1 Wadd., 264; L. C. Eq., vol. 1st, 517.

It is not anywise certain that under the English cases, the corpus of separate property could be appropriated to the payment of her general engagements, certainly not /as to real estate, as far as we have examined the cases. The [243]*243rule laid down by Lord Thurlow, in tbe leading cases of tbe Hulme v. Tenant, 1st Br. C. C., 16, is “that the general engagement of the wife shall operate upon her personal property, shall apply to the rents and profits of her real estate, and that her trustees shall be obliged to apply personal estate and rents and profits when they arise, to the satisfaction of such general engagement,” but he adds: “This court has not used any direct process against the separate estate of the wife, and the manner of coming at the separate property of the wife has been, by decree, to bind the trustees, as to personal estate in their hands” (that is, as we understand it, money), “or rents and profits, according to the exigency of justice, or of the engagement of the wife to be earned into execution.” It is also said that no case was then known, where the court had gone to the extent of directing the trustees of the estate to make conveyance of the real estate, or by sale, mortgage or otherwise, raise the money to satisfy that general engagement on the part of the wife. See 1 L. C. in Eq., 517. This was laid down before it had been held that the wife could hold separate estate at all, except by the intervention of the trustee. In the United States, however, a different doctrine has obtained on the general question, and is now settled in a large-number of the states. It is thus laid down by Chancellor Kent, in the case of The Methodist Church v. Jaques, 3 Johns. Ch. R., 78, decided 1817. He says, instead of holding that the wife is a feme sole, to- all intents and purposes as to her separate- property, she ought only to- be deemed a feme sole sub modo, or to the extent of the power clearly given by the settlement. Instead of maintaining that she has an absolute power of disposition, unless specially restrained by the instrument, the converse of the proposition would be more correct, that she has no power but what is specially given, and to be exercised in the mode prescribed, if any such there be. Her incapacity is general, the exception is to be taken strictly, and to be shown in every case, [244]*244because it is against tbe general policy and immemorial doctrine of tbe law. It is true, this case was reversed on appeal in New York, but the weight of the character of the learned chancellor has given effect to the opinion held by him, so that notwithstanding this reversal, the principle maintained by him has been substantially followed as the sound exposition of the law by many of the ablest courts of the union. In Tennessee, the reasoning and rule thus announced by Chancellor Nent, has substantially been adopted and followed with almost singular uniformity by numerous decisions. There may be some apparent diversity in the application of the rule in some of our cases, but the rule itself has at all times been recognized, as originally laid down by Judge Green, in the leading case of Morgan v. Elam, 4 Yer., 445, 446, and 451. Judge Green said in that opinion: “As by the common law rule, the legal existence of the wife is suspended during the coverture, and she is rendered incapable of making any contract, it would seem to follow that when separate rights and distinct powers are conferred on her by a deed of marriage settlement, that such deed should be so construed as to give her none of the powers of a feme sole, other than those expressly conferred by it. Upon the whole,” he says, “I conclude that the farthest the court can go upon principle, is to ascertain, by a fair construction of the deed, what was the intention of the grantor, and to cause that intention to be carried into effect.” [Pages 446, 441.] Judge Catron says, after referring to the common law disabilities of the wife: “But equity permits her to be exempt from this rule, so far as she stipulates for exemption; yet the court can give her no powers beyond those given by the settlement. She acts substantially as an attorney in fact in such case, as she well may in any other. In either [case], she must pursue the express authority; all beyond is void.” [Same, case, p. 451.]

We think the sound principle is given by Judge Green, [245]*245in the above case, that when we look for the powers of a married woman by reason of her having a separate estate, and in so far having a separate existence from her husband, in contravention of the rule of the common law, we must look to the instrument by which this separate estate is created, and out of which these independent powers spring, to ascertain their extent. If it be a deed by which the property is conveyed to her by a third party, rhe fairly expressed intention of the instrument, taken in connection with the objects and purposes of the conveyance', will furnish the measure of her powers over it.

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Bluebook (online)
1 Shan. Cas. 239, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-whitmore-tenn-1872.