Baer Brothers v. Terry

• Decision Date: 01 January 1901
• Docket Number: 14,354
• Citation: 32 So. 353,108 La. 597
• Parties: BAER BROTHERS v. I. C. & G. C. TERRY
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

32 So. 353

108 La. 597

BAER BROTHERS v. I. C. & G. C. TERRY

No. 14,354

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 1, 1901

Rehearing refused.

IN RE Baer Brothers, applying for Certiorari, or Writ of Review, to the Court of Appeal, Second Circuit, State of Louisiana.

Hudson Potts & Bernstein, for Applicants.

Andrew Augustus Gunby, for Respondents.

OPINION

BLANCHARD J.

This suit is the sequel of that entitled "Baer Bros. vs. Mrs. G. C. Terry and Husband," decided by this court in May 1901. See 105 La. 479.

The parties litigant in that case are the same as the parties litigant in this case, and the facts and circumstances out of which grew that litigation and this are set forth in the opinion of the court in the first suit.

It is not deemed necessary to repeat them here in extenso.

The first suit was against Mrs. G. C. Terry, the wife of I. C Terry, to recover the price of certain mules which it was alleged had been purchased for, and had enured to, her separate account and benefit, and certain promissory notes executed by I. C. Terry and G. C. Terry were annexed to the petition for reference and filed with it.

With reference to these notes this court in its opinion in the former case said: --

Defendant is sued as purchaser of the mules, not as maker of the notes; she is sued as a Louisiana wife bound for the price of movables purchased by her for the separate benefit of herself and her paraphernal property; not as a Missouri wife bound on notes executed by her in the State of her domicil, for a debt of her husband. The petition contains not a word of allegation of the laws of Missouri, or of the notes having been executed while defendant was a resident of Missouri.

These things in order to be proved had to be alleged; and in this we agree with defendant's counsel. But we differ with the able and learned counsel in his contention that because the notes are made payable in Louisiana, the capacity of the defendant to make them must be tested by Louisiana law. Capacity to contract is tested by the law of the domicil. Rorer Interstate Law, p. 263. Nor do we agree with the counsel's contention that, assuming defendant to have been liable on the notes before she came to this State, the law of this State prohibiting wives from binding themselves for the debts of their husbands precludes recovery against her. The law is satisfied and its whole object and purpose is accomplished when Louisiana wives are protected against binding themselves for the debts of their husbands; this protection is not extended to Missouri wives, and if these bind themselves in the State of their domicil for the debts of their husbands, they cannot be permitted to come to this State to be divorced from their obligations. When defendant crossed our borders as an immigrant to our soil the debt was already hers, and it has continued to be such. There is nothing in the atmosphere of Louisiana law and Louisiana jurisprudence to disintegrate, or dissolve, valid obligations; to...