Hayworth v. Williams

• Decision Date: 24 February 1909
• Citation: 116 S.W. 43
• Parties: HAYWORTH v. WILLIAMS et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

116 S.W. 43

HAYWORTH v. WILLIAMS et al.

Supreme Court of Texas.

February 24, 1909.

Certified Questions from Court of Civil Appeals of Second Supreme Judicial District.

Action by Thomas Jefferson, prosecuted after his death by J. E. Hayworth, temporary administrator, against Margreth Williams and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals to the Court of Civil Appeals, and it certifies questions to the Supreme Court. Questions answered.

Stuart & Bell, for appellant. Green & Blanton and Potter & Culp, for appellees.

BROWN, J.

Certified questions from the Court of Civil Appeals of the Second district, as follows:

"The above-styled cause is now pending before us on a motion for rehearing. The opinion rendered by us on the original hearing will accompany this certificate, and is made a part of it. The members of this court are agreed upon the ground of reversal upon which the cause was originally reversed, but are not agreed as to the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support appellee Margreth's plea of limitation against the deceased Thomas Jefferson, or even to authorize the submission of such issue should the evidence be the same on another trial.

"We therefore certify to your honors for decision whether or not (a) the evidence contained in the record, which appears to be undisputed, raises the issue of title by limitations of 10 years in favor of appellee Margreth Williams as against the deceased Thomas Jefferson, or, (b) if not identical with the above, is the evidence legally sufficient to support a finding in her favor on such issue?

"The opinion referred to will also disclose that we held it to be error in the trial court to exclude evidence tendered by appellee Nettie Maloy, tending to show that she was an unmarried daughter living with the family of the deceased at the time of his death, upon which she based her claim to the property in controversy as a homestead as a surviving constituent of her father's family. It is insisted on this motion that since Mrs. Maloy, she being a widow, is the illegitimate daughter of Thomas Jefferson and appellee Margreth, and therefore not entitled to inherit from her father, she is also not within the statute (Sayles' Ann. Civ. St. 1897, art. 2046) making it the duty of the probate court `to set apart for the use and benefit of the widow and minor children and unmarried daughters remaining with the family of the deceased the exempt property of the estate.' While we understand it to be settled, as contended by appellant in this motion, that, where the only surviving constituent of a deceased's family is an unmarried daughter, her rights as such surviving constituent are subordinate to the right of the heirs to a partition of the homestead (White v. Small, 22 Tex. Civ. App. 318, 54 S. W. 915—writ refused), and while it appears that the deceased Thomas Jefferson left surviving him no minor children to claim the homestead, we nevertheless yet believe we were correct in our holding, since the question before us was not one involving the rights of the heirs to a partition, but rather, whether or not the appellant, temporary administrator of the estate, would be entitled to recover the homestead as against the rights of a surviving unmarried daughter living with deceased's family at the time of his death. In view of the novelty of the question and of the reversal of the case, we deem it advisable to certify to your honors whether or not we erred in this holding.

"It is also earnestly insisted that we erred in holding that on another trial, if the evidence showed that the property was acquired by money accumulated and earned by the joint efforts of the appellee Margreth and the deceased Thomas, she would be entitled to one-half of the property. It is insisted, though erroneously we think, that we are in conflict with the decision of the Court of Civil Appeals of the First district in the case of Lawson v. Lawson, 30 Tex. Civ. App. 43, 69 S. W. 246, wherein a writ was refused by your honors, and that that decision is decisive of appellees' rights in the land in controversy. In the Lawson Case, as we understand it, Mrs. Lawson's rights were accorded to her upon the express finding that she had innocently entered into the marriage relation with her husband, believing the same to be lawful, and therefore the question of what her property rights would have been had she been cognizant of their illicit relations was not before the court. The contention of appellant in effect is that our holding in this respect is tantamount to an enforcement by the courts of an illegal contract between deceased and appellee Margreth by recognizing her property rights in the property acquired during their joint lives. But we thought, and still think, that this wholesome principle of law is not violated by such holding, inasmuch as her rights under our holding are predicated upon the equitable grounds that her individual funds or earnings entered into the acquisition, and not that her rights are in any sense those of a lawful wife; in other words, that the case would be no different if she were a man and had contributed funds toward the acquisition of the property taken in the name of another. To accord her such rights appears to us to be in keeping with the dictates of common honesty, and in no wise to involve the enforcement of an illegal contract. The case of Chapman v. Chapman, 16 Tex. Civ. App. 382, 41 S. W. 533, cited as authority for the holding in Lawson v. Lawson, supra, recognized such a rule, and adjusted the property rights of the man and woman with reference to it. But in view of the insistance of counsel and of the novelty of the question, we also certify to your honors whether or not we erred in this last holding."

The Court of Civil Appeals has submitted three questions, which, for convenience, we formulate as follows:

First Question: Did the evidence in the record raise the issue of 10-year limitation in favor of Margreth Williams against Thomas Jefferson?

Briefly, the evidence bearing upon this question is as follows: In 1859 Thomas Jefferson, being then a married man and living in the state of Pennsylvania, entered into a marriage, in form, with Margreth Williams,...