Hawkins v. Providence & W. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 27 March 1876
• Parties: Bridget Hawkins v. Providence and Worcester Railroad Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

119 Mass. 596

Bridget Hawkins v. Providence and Worcester Railroad Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

March 27, 1876

Argued October 28, 1875

Bristol. Contract, with a count in tort, for the loss of certain articles of personal property, delivered to the defendant corporation for transportation from Worcester to Providence, the plaintiff being a passenger at the time.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Pitman, J., it appeared in evidence, on the part of the plaintiff, that, prior to the bringing of this suit, she and her husband lived together as husband and wife; that she and her husband had worked in a mill, and that he had delivered to her from time to time his earnings, and that she had mingled with them her own earnings; that the articles mentioned in the declaration, and described therein as clothing suitable for her, were by her purchased and used for her personal apparel, by consent of her husband, with money given her by him from the fund formed by their joint earnings. The defendant asked the judge to direct a verdict for the defendant; the judge refused so to do, and the defendant excepted.

The defendant asked the judge to instruct the jury as follows:

"If the plaintiff purchased the goods with her husband's permission, and with his money, she cannot recover. If the plaintiff was earning money, and mixed it as earned and received with her husband's earnings, and from their joint earnings she, with his consent, purchased the property she cannot recover.

"If a married woman, not having filed a certificate under the statutes, mingles her earnings with those of her husband clothing purchased by her from the joint fund would be property of her husband."

The judge refused so to rule, and instructed the jury as follows "If the wife purchased the articles with the husband's money, given her by him, or with her own money, or with money from a fund created by mingling the earnings of wife and husband, she would have such a title to these articles of her personal apparel as would enable her to recover their value in this action."

The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendant alleged exceptions to the refusal to rule as requested, and to the rulings given.

Exceptions sustained.

J. Hopkins, for the defendant.

B. K. Lovatt, for the plaintiff.

Ames, J. Morton & Lord, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Ames, J.

The statutes which from time to time have been enacted in this Commonwealth, for the purpose of enlarging the rights and privileges of married women, have not in terms made any specific regulations in regard to the ownership of their wearing apparel. Except in cases where the wife herself purchases it with her own separate money or earnings, that matter remains exactly as it stood at common law. At common law, the husband is bound to maintain the wife, and to provide her with suitable clothing appropriate to their degree and his own circumstances and social position. If the articles of clothing and personal ornament appropriate for her are purchased with his money or upon his credit, the fact that they are selected and purchased by her, and are intended for her personal and exclusive use, does not render them any the less his property. In this respect, the clothing of the wife comes under the same general rule as the clothing of the minor children in the same family. The provision of the Gen. Sts. c. 96, § 4, that "the articles of apparel and ornament of the widow and minor children of a deceased person shall belong to them respectively," furnishes a strong implication...