Arnold v. Leonard

• Decision Date: 10 June 1925
• Docket Number: (No. 4107.)
• Citation: 273 S.W. 799
• Parties: ARNOLD v. LEONARD et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

273 S.W. 799

ARNOLD v. LEONARD et al.

(No. 4107.)

Supreme Court of Texas.

June 10, 1925.

Certified Questions from Court of Civil Appeals of the First Supreme Judicial District.

Action by Adele E. Leonard and husband against Gus I. Arnold, administrator of the estate of Gus Schultz, deceased. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. On certified questions from the Court of Civil Appeals of the First Supreme Judicial District of Texas. Questions answered.

Stewarts and Judge F. A. Williams, all of Galveston, for appellant.

P. A. Drouilhit, of Galveston, for appellees.

GREENWOOD, J.

The Court of Civil Appeals states the nature and facts of this case and the question which the Supreme Court is requested to determine as follows:

"The suit was brought by the appellee Mrs. Adele E. Leonard, a married woman, joined pro forma by her husband, St. Clair Leonard, for an injunction to restrain the appellant, Gus I. Arnold, as administrator of the estate of Gus Schultz, deceased, from seizing or attempting to subject certain rents and revenues from a number of pieces of real estate in the city of Galveston, all being the separate estate of the wife, Mrs. Adele E. Leonard, to the payment of a judgment owned and held by the appellant against St. Clair Leonard, the husband.

"The facts alleged in the bill for injunction were agreed to be true by both parties to the suit, and showed, as recited, that all the real property involved is owned by Mrs. Adele E. Leonard, the wife, as her separate estate; that the judgment held and owned by the appellant in his capacity as administrator of the estate of Schultz was against the husband, St. Clair Leonard, and represented a community indebtedness; that in these circumstances the administrator was seeking, by threatening the issuance of writs of garnishment on the judgment against various renters and tenants of Mrs. Leonard's separate real estate, to subject the rents and revenues thereof to the payment of this judgment.

"The appellant in the trial court answered the petition and prayer for an injunction with a special exception to the effect that it appeared from the allegations of the petition itself that the rent and revenues, the collection of which was so sought to be enjoined, constituted the community estate of Mrs. Adele E. Leonard and her husband, St. Clair Leonard, and by virtue of the Constitution of Texas, art. 16, § 15, the rents and revenues of the separate estate of the wife are community property, and subject to the debts of the husband, and that article 4621, c. 3, title 68, of the Revised Statutes of Texas of 1911, and the amendment thereof by the act of the regular session of the Thirty-Seventh Legislature, c. 130, § 1 (Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1922, art. 4621), which undertakes to declare the rents and revenues of the wife's separate real property to be her separate estate, is contrary to the terms of the Constitution referred to, and is therefore void.

"The trial court overruled the special exception of the appellant, and granted the injunction prayed for by the appellees, restraining the appellant from in any manner undertaking to have the rents and revenues from the separate real property of the appellee Mrs. Adele E. Leonard applied to the liquidation of the judgment so held against her husband, holding that the rents and revenues of her separate estate constituted her separate property and were beyond the reach of a creditor of the community estate of the husband and wife.

"It being obvious that the sole question involved in the case is as to the constitutionality of said Revised Statutes, art. 4621, because of the importance of the question and of some doubt entertained by different members of this court as to the correctness of the trial court's determination of it, we deem it advisable to certify for your decision the following question:

"Is the act of the Legislature above stated, which declares the rents and revenues of the wife's separate real property to be her separate estate, violative of article 16, section 15, of our state Constitution? In this connection we call attention to the case of Rudasill v. Rudasill (Tex. Civ. App.) 219 S. W. 843."

Later the honorable Court of Civil Appeals submitted the following supplemental certificate, viz.:

"Since filing our original certificate, which shows that the fundamental question in this case is the validity of the acts of the Legislature providing that the rents and revenues derived from the separate estate of a married woman shall be her separate property, our attention has been called to the question of whether the provision of the act of 1917 (General Laws of 35th Legislature, page 436 [Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1918, art. 4621]), declaring that the rents and revenues derived from the wife's separate property shall be her separate property, or the similar provision in the act of 1921 (General Laws, Thirty-Seventh Legislature, page 251 [Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. Supp. 1922, art. 4621]), can be considered as embraced by or within the purview of the caption or title of either of said acts, as required by section 35, article 3, of the Constitution of this state.

"We deem it advisable to certify this question for your decision, and therefore ask:

"Is the provision of the acts of 1917 and of 1921 that the rents and revenues derived from the wife's separate property shall be separate property of the wife a valid provision in either of those statutes?"

Section 15 of article 16 of the Constitution declares:

"All property, both real and personal, of the wife, owned or claimed by her before marriage, and that acquired afterward by gift, devise, or descent, shall be her separate property; and laws shall be passed more clearly defining the rights of the wife, in relation as well to her separate property as that held in common with her husband. Laws shall also be passed providing for the registration of the wife's separate property."

This section is found, without a single word changed, in the Constitutions of 1845, 1861, and 1866. Section 19, article 7, Constitutions of 1845, 1861, and 1866; volume 4, Sayles' Texas Statutes, pp. 209, 246, 321.

Prior to the adoption of the Constitution of 1845, the wife's separate property had been so defined by the act approved January 20, 1840 (Acts 1840, p. 30) as to include the lands and slaves owned or claimed by the wife at the time of her marriage and the land and slaves acquired by her during coverture by gift, devise, or descent, together with the increase of such slaves, and her paraphernalia.

It is undeniable that under the act of 1840 all property other than that specifically defined as separate property of the wife was intended to belong to the separate estate of the husband or to become common property of the husband and wife. Such is the express provision of the act. Section 19 of article 7 of the Constitution of 1845 was essentially an enlargement of the wife's separate estate. Under the act of 1840 all the wife's right to personal property passed to the husband, with the solitary exception of slaves and their increase. Owen v. Tankersley, 12 Tex. 407; section 66, Speer's Law of Marital Rights in Texas; 30 C. J. 530, § 52c. By the constitutional provision all property, both real and personal, owned or claimed by the wife before marriage and that acquired by the wife afterwards by gift, devise, or descent became her separate property. We can conceive of no sound reason for concluding that the terms of the Constitution of 1845 were not meant to furnish the sole measure of the wife's separate estate, as had the act of 1840, with its less liberal provision for the wife. Whatever the language of section 19 of article 7 meant in the Constitution of 1845, that language has the same signification in section 15 of article 16 of the Constitution of 1876. Muench v. Oppenheimer, 86 Tex. 570, 26 S. W. 496; Cox v. Robison, 105 Tex. 430, 150 S. W. 1149.

The plain and obvious import of the language of the Constitution is to prescribe a test by which to determine when an acquest by the wife becomes a portion of the wife's separate estate. The test during coverture relates to the method by which the property is acquired. If the method be by gift, devise, or descent to the wife, then the Constitution makes the property belong to the wife's separate estate. If the method of acquiring during marriage be different, then the property falls without the class of separate estate of the wife, as fixed by the Constitution. We think the Supreme Court was doing no more than giving effect to the words of the Constitution when it said, through Chief Justice Willie:

"But of the property which a wife may acquire during marriage, none becomes her separate estate except such as is derived by gift, devise or descent." Ezell v. Dodson, 60 Tex. 332.

We have no doubt that the people in adopting the Constitution in 1845, as in 1876, understood that it was intended to put the matter of the classes of property constituting the wife's separate estate beyond legislative control. Thereby both the wife and the husband were given constitutional guaranty of the status of all property derived by means of or through the wife. Our duty is plain to give effect to the people's will. Cooley's Constitutional Limitations (7th Ed.) p. 89.

It is a rule of construction of Constitutions that ordinarily, when the circumstances are specified under which any right is to be acquired, there is an implied prohibition against the legislative power to either add to or withdraw from the circumstances specified. Koy v. Schneider, 110 Tex. 378, 218 S. W. 479, 221 S. W. 880; Dickson v. Strickland (Tex. Sup.) 265 S. W. 1015; Ex parte Vallandigham, 1 Wall. 252, 17 L. Ed. 589; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, p. 99; 6 R. C. L. § 43. Hence, when the Constitution says that as to property, not owned or claimed by the wife at marriage, it becomes her separate property when acquired in one of three specified...