Gillespie v. Gillespie

• Citation: 64 Minn. 381
• Decision Date: 11 May 1896
• Docket Number: Nos. 9968 - (128).,s. 9968 - (128).
• Parties: LOUISE GILLESPIE v. JAMES W. GILLESPIE and Another.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

64 Minn. 381

LOUISE GILLESPIE v. JAMES W. GILLESPIE and Another.¹

Nos. 9968 - (128).

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 11, 1896.

Action in the district court for Hennepin county by Louise Gillespie against James W. Gillespie, her husband, and the Farmers' & Mechanics' Savings Bank of Minneapolis, for conversion of $775, alleged to have been deposited by defendant Gillespie in said bank. Defendant Gillespie demurred to the complaint, on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction of defendant or the subject of the action; that plaintiff had no legal capacity to sue; that there was a defect of parties; and that the complaint did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. From an order, Elliott, J., overruling the demurrer, defendant Gillespie appealed. Affirmed.

G. Ellis Tuttle, for appellant.

Wm. H. Donahue, for respondent.

MITCHELL, J.

G. S. 1894, § 5530, provides that "women shall retain the same legal existence and legal personality after marriage as before marriage, and shall receive the same protection of all her rights, as a woman, which her husband does, as a man; and for any injury sustained to her reputation, person, property, character, or any natural right, she shall have the same right to appeal in her own name alone to the courts of law and equity, for redress and protection, that her husband has to appear in his name alone." Section 5531 provides that "all property, real, personal and mixed and choses in action owned by any married woman, or owned or held by any woman at the time of her marriage shall continue to be her separate property notwithstanding such marriage. * * *" The obvious intent and effect of these statutory provisions is to preserve the separate legal existence of a married woman in respect to all her rights of person and property, and, to the extent necessary to the full exercise and protection of these rights, to give her in her own name all the remedies in the courts which she would have if unmarried. In Spencer v. St. Paul & S. C. R. Co., 22 Minn. 29, we held that this was the effect of section 5531 (Laws 1869, c. 56), as respects her separate property. Section 5530 (Laws 1887, c. 207) extends this rule to all rights, of both person and property, and expressly gives her (what was implied in the previous statute) the same remedies in the courts for the protection of these rights which she would have if unmarried. The clearly-declared policy of the statute in respect to the relation of husband...