Grimes v. Reynolds

Decision Date13 May 1902
Citation94 Mo. App. 576,68 S.W. 588,184 Mo. 679
PartiesGRIMES v. REYNOLDS.
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals

1. A wife having a separate estate gave a note to her husband for money borrowed. After her death he proved the note as an ordinary demand against her estate in the probate court. It is held that the latter had jurisdiction to allow the demand, and plaintiff was not obliged to seek a court of equity.

2. At common law a suitor might enforce against the estate of a deceased spouse claims on contract which could not be asserted at law during the lifetime of the other party.

3. The estate of a married woman is to be administered in the probate court like any other estate under the Missouri statutes touching administration.

4. The probate court in Missouri has jurisdiction to allow against an estate money demands, whether legal or equitable in nature.

5. Prior to the enactment of what is now section 4340, Rev. St. 1899, husband and wife could become creditor and debtor of each other, and enforce their rights in equity as such, where the wife had a separate estate.

6. Gifts between husband and wife were valid in equity before the recent statutes concerning married women.

7. The court reviews the legislation in Missouri vesting married women with separate property and conferring upon them rights of action in all the courts.

8. The object of all interpretation of law is to reach the true intent and meaning of the lawmaking authority.

9. In arriving at the intent of a given law, it is often imperative to examine the previous history of the law and the decisions construing it, in order to carry out the purpose of the amended enactment.

10. All statutes in pari materia should be considered in determining the import of any part of them.

11. It is a maxim of the law that a grant of power or of right is usually construed to include such incidents as will make the principal grant effective.

12. The court disproves the decision in Lindsay v. Archibald (K. C.) 65 Mo. App. 117, on the point involved in this case, and certifies the latter to the supreme court because of that conflict of opinion.

(Syllabus by the Judge.)

Appeal from circuit court, Pike county; David H. Eby, Judge.

Action by John M. Grimes against Court-land Reynolds, administrator of the estate of Nancy M. Grimes, deceased. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Pearson & Pearson, for appellant. Frank J. Duvall and J. D. Hostetter, for respondent.

BARCLAY, J.

This case originated in the probate court of Pike county, Mo., by the presentment for allowance of a demand against the estate of Nancy M. Grimes, deceased. The claimant, John M. Grimes, was her husband. He is the regular administrator of her estate. In view of plaintiff's adverse claim against the estate, Mr. Courtland Reynolds was appointed administrator for the time, in accordance with the statute on that subject. Rev. St. 1899, § 205. The demand is based on a promissory note for $286.60, dated February 1, 1900, payable one day after date, with interest, to the order of plaintiff, and is signed by N. M. Grimes. In the probate court there was a hearing, in which both parties were represented. The court found in favor of the plaintiff, and allowed his demand against the estate, with interest. Afterwards, in due course, defendant took an appeal to the circuit court, where the claim was tried anew, with like result, neither party requiring a jury. The judgment was in the usual form, allowing plaintiff's demand against said estate in the sum of $270.42 and costs in the fifth class. The allowance was ordered certified to the probate court in due form. Defendant thereupon appealed to the St. Louis court of appeals in the ordinary way.

There is no dispute in regard to the facts of the case. The questions involved are purely questions of law. The plaintiff, John M. Grimes, and the deceased, Nancy M. Grimes, were husband and wife, and so remained until her death, in May, 1900. They were married in 1897. She made the note to her husband, the plaintiff, as described. It was founded upon the unquestionable consideration of money loaned, as proven by the testimony of a disinterested witness at the hearing. The note was in the usual form of such obligations. It is one of two which plaintiff desires to have established as demands against his wife's estate. The other note is the subject of a different suit, tried at the same time with this, and appealed along with it. It was in evidence that Mrs. Grimes was the owner of real property in the state of Missouri when she married plaintiff, and that she acquired other realty during the marriage, and that said property produced income to her. All these facts were undisputed. The trial court found in favor of the plaintiff, and allowed the demand as already stated, just as the probate court had done. The case is narrowed into this shape: Whether or not a note given by a wife to her husband during their coverture for money borrowed of him by her may be proved up by him in the ordinary way as a demand against her individual estate after her death.

1. It is singular that this is not a perfectly simple proposition, but it does not seem to be entirely free of difficulty. The chief contention of appellant is that no court can take cognizance of such a claim except a court of equity. The justice of the obligation itself is not controverted. No testimony was tendered by defendant which might in any respect challenge the consideration of the note. Defendant plants himself behind the supposed rule of procedure forbidding a husband to sue his wife, and contends that, whatever remedy plaintiff may have, he has none in the probate court, where this proceeding originated. Although the existing legislation governing the relation of husband and wife and defining their reciprocal rights in the property of each other may have created new difficulties of interpretation, it is our duty to attempt their solution patiently, and with due respect for the purposes and spirit of that legislation. It is by no means necessary to review at any length the steps which have brought our laws concerning married women into their present form. The entire chapter on that subject (Rev. St. 1899, c. 51) exhibits a series of enactments, evolved from time to time, all pointing to a certain general purpose. The most sweeping of these provisions are sections 4335, 4340, Rev. St. 1899, and of them the more important in its bearing on this litigation is the former, the terms of which it may be well to repeat here: "Sec. 4335. Wife Deemed Feme Sole, for What Purposes. — A married woman shall be deemed a feme sole so far as to enable her to carry on and transact business on her own account, to contract and be contracted with, to sue and be sued, and to enforce and have enforced against her property such judgments as may be rendered for or against her, and may sue and be sued at law or in equity, with or without her husband being joined as a party: provided, a married woman may invoke all exemption and homestead laws now in force for the protection of personal and real property owned by the head of a family, except in cases where the husband has claimed such exemption and homestead rights for the protection of his own property." Before the passage, in 1889, of the law last quoted, some very definite rulings had been made touching the right of husband and wife to make contracts with each other in cases where the wife possessed a separate estate. In Morrison v. Thistle, 67 Mo. 596, — a case which arose out of transactions in 1871, before the enactment of that part of section 4340, Rev. St. 1899, which first appeared in Missouri in 1875 as a new act (Laws Mo. 1875, p. 61), — a wife having a separate estate in equity executed a note to her husband, and it was held to be a valid equitable charge against her estate. Judge Sherwood, speaking for the whole court, said that husband and wife might contract and "become the creditor or debtor of each other, with like effect, so far as regards equitable contemplation and rights, as if they had never become one flesh." The same doctrine was applied in other Missouri cases, of which we mention a very few, some of which held that even gifts between husband and wife were valid in equity, to say nothing of more perfect contracts. Meyer v. McCabe, 73 Mo. 236; Turner v. Shaw, 96 Mo. 22, 8 S. W. 897, 9 Am. St. Rep. 319; Botts v. Gooch, 97 Mo. 88, 11 S. W. 42, 10 Am. St. Rep. 286; State v. Jones (St. L.) 83 Mo. App. 151. These precedents were founded on well-known precepts of English jurisprudence as applied in courts of chancery, according to recognized authorities cited in some of the opinions mentioned. It was well-settled law before the enactment of section 4335, Rev. St. 1899, that such a contract of a wife with a husband as is here in suit was valid and enforceable in courts of chancery against her separate estate in equity, without invoking any of the modern statutory provisions conferring on married women the power to make contracts concerning her own property. So far as concerns the right of suit between husband and wife, it is well to notice a passage in the Code of Procedure: "A married woman may, in her own name, with or without joining her husband as a party, sue and be sued in any of the courts of this state having jurisdiction, with the same force and effect as if she was a feme sole, and any judgment in the cause shall have the same force and effect as if she were unmarried." Rev. St. 1899, § 546. The foregoing section first appeared as section 1996, Rev. St. 1889. It is interesting to notice the evolution of the Missouri law in this phase of our topic. Some steps in that process are quite significant in their bearing...

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