Rodgers v. Bank of Pike Cnty

• Citation: 69 Mo. 560
• Parties: RODGERS v. THE BANK OF PIKE COUNTY, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 30 April 1879
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

69 Mo. 560

RODGERS

v.THE BANK OF PIKE COUNTY, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1879.

Appeal from Louisiana Court of Common Pleas.--HON. G PORTER, Judge.

This was a suit on certificate of deposit for $400. The plaintiff was a married woman. Her husband did not join in the action. The facts, as developed at the trial, were as follows: Plaintiff being the owner of certain real estate sold it, and authorized her husband to collect the purchase price. This he did and deposited the amount in his own name with the defendant bank, claiming it as his own. Afterwards, during the same day, he returned to the bank, and asked the cashier if his creditors could reach the money, and upon being informed that they could if they had judgment, he directed the cashier to transfer the deposit to his wife's (the plaintiff's) credit, which was done and the certificate sued on was issued in her name. He, at the same time, directed the cashier to pay out the money on checks drawn by either himself or plaintiff. It was afterwards paid out on checks drawn in plaintiff's name, the signature being executed in every instance but one by her husband. When she authorized him to collect the money, she did not tell him to deposit it in bank, but he informed her a few days afterwards that he had deposited it in her name. She afterwards called at the bank with the certificate and learned that he had already drawn out $100. She made no answer when told of this.

The court refused the following declarations of law asked by the defendant:

1. Although the court may believe from the testimony that plaintiff did not give her husband special authority to deposit the money in question in defendant bank; yet if the court further finds from the testimony that plaintiff authorized or permitted her husband to collect money belonging to her, and that in pursuance of said authority her said husband did collect plaintiff's money and deposit the same in said bank, then the defendant is protected in paying out said money under the directions of plaintiff's husband.

2. If the judge, sitting as a jury, believes from the testimony that the plaintiff's husband, on the 16th day of December, 1875, as the agent of his wife, deposited in the Bank of Pike County $400 to the credit of plaintiff, and instructed the cashier to pay checks in his wife's name, drawn either by himself or her; and if the court further finds that all of said money was paid by said bank, prior to the institution of this suit, upon checks in plaintiff's name, drawn by her said husband, then the verdict should be for defendant.

3. If the court finds, from the testimony, that the plaintiff knew that her husband was drawing checks against her account and was appropriating her money to his own use, and that the plaintiff failed to notify the officers of the bank not to pay checks drawn by her said husband, then the verdict should be for the defendant; provided the court further finds that the plaintiff's husband in making said deposit, acted for his wife as her agent; and, further, that all of said money was paid (under the directions and instructions of her said husband) prior to the institution of this suit.

4. If the court finds, from the testimony, that plaintiff was a married woman at the time of the institution of this suit, then she cannot maintain this action without making her husband a party, and the verdict should be for the defendant.

W H. Biggs, for appellant.

Wagner, Dyer and Emmons, for respondent.

1. WIFE'S SEPARATE MEANS: married woman's act of 1875 construed.

NAPTON, J.

There are two questions presented by this record. 1st. The defendant claims that the money, which was the proceeds of the sale of the wife's land, was reduced to the husband's possession, and, therefore, that the bank who received the money from the husband, as his money, had a right so to regard it. That this was the common law is conceded, but it is contended that the act of 1875, (Sess. Acts p. 61) taken in connection with the 14th section of the statute in relation to married women, (2 Wag. Stat. 935) has changed the law in this respect; and this is my opinion, and that of a majority of the court. The provision of the act of 1875, is as follows: “Any personal property, including rights in action, belonging to any woman at her marriage, or which may have come to her during coverture, by gift, bequest, inheritance, or by purchase with her separate money, or means, or be due as wages of her separate labor, or have grown out of any violation of her personal rights, shall together with all income, increase and profits thereof, be and remain her separate property, and under her sole control, and shall not be liable to be taken by any process of law for the debts of her husband. This act shall not affect the title of any husband to any personal property reduced to his possession with the express assent of his wife. Provided, that said personal property shall not be deemed to have been reduced to possession by the husband by his use, occupancy, care, or protection thereof, but...