Mccarty v. De Best

• Decision Date: 11 March 1876
• Citation: 120 Mass. 89
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: Mary Ann McCarty v. Richard De Best & wife

120 Mass. 89

Mary Ann McCarty v. Richard De Best & wife

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

March 11, 1876

Suffolk. Tort for slander by the female defendant. The answer of the husband set up that he was improperly joined in the action.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Putnam, J., the defendants requested the judge to rule that the plaintiff could not recover against the husband, he being improperly joined. This ruling was refused. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendants alleged exceptions.

Exceptions overruled as to her, and sustained as to him.

E. B. Smith, for the defendants.

C. J. Brooks, for the plaintiff, submitted the case without argument.

Gray, C. J. Ames & Morton, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Gray, C. J.

The St. of 1871, c. 312, ^[*] was manifestly intended to make the wife alone liable to action, judgment and execution for torts committed by her in the future. This was clearly intimated in Hill v. Duncan, 110 Mass. 238, and was directly adjudged in Austin v. Cox, 118 Mass. 58. The present action having been brought against both husband and wife, for a tort committed by her since the passage of this statute, the exceptions must be

Overruled as to her, and sustained as to him.

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Notes:

^[*]"Any married woman may sue and be sued in actions of tort in the same manner as if she were sole, and her husband shall not be liable to pay the judgment against her for damages or costs in any such suit, but the same may be collected out of her property, real or personal; and all sums, recovered by her in any such suit, shall be her sole and separate property."

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