Sykes v. Chadwick

• Decision Date: 01 October 1873
• Citation: 21 L.Ed. 824,18 Wall. 141,85 U.S. 141
• Parties: SYKES v. CHADWICK
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

85 U.S. 141

21 L.Ed. 824

18 Wall. 141

SYKES v. CHADWICK.

October Term, 1873

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, the case being thus:

James Sykes and H. A. Chadwick (the latter a married man, his wife being Eleanor Chadwick), owning a piece of real estate in the city of Washington, and wishing to borrow money on it, conveyed it by deed of trust—that is to say, mortgaged it—to Hyde to secure a sum which he lent them; Mrs. Chadwick joining in the mortgage, and her acknowledgment of the same being taken separately and apart from her husband, in the way prescribed by the laws of the District in order to pass the estate of a feme covert.

Desiring afterwards to sell the same property (the mortgage being still unpaid), Sykes and Chadwick requested Mrs. Chadwick to join them in a deed to the purchaser for the purpose of releasing her right of dower.

She did so; and, in consideration therefor, they gave her a note in this form:

$5000.

WASHINGTON, October 15th, 1869.

Six months after date, we promise to pay to the order Eleanor Chadwick five thousand dollars, value received.

JAMES SYKES,

H. A. CHADWICK.

At the time when this note was thus given, there prevailed in the District an act of Congress, passed April 10th, 1869,¹ in these words An Act regulating the Rights of Property of Married Women in the District of Columbia.

SEC. 1. The right of any married woman to any property, personal or real, belonging to her at the time of her marriage, or acquired during marriage in any other way than by gift or conveyance from her husband, shall be as absolute as if she were feme sole, and shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor liable for his debts; but such married woman may convey, devise, and bequeath the same, or any interest therein, in the same manner and with like effect as if she were unmarried.

SEC. 2. Any married woman may contract and sue and be sued, in her own name, in all matters having relation to her sole and separate property, in the same manner as if she were unmarried; but neither her husband, nor his property, shall be bound by any such contract, nor liable for any recovery against her in any such suit; but judgment may be enforced by execution against her sole and separate property, as if she were sole.

Also another act, of February 22d, 1867,² in these words:

An Act to amend the law of the District of Columbia in relation to Judicial Proceedings therein.

SEC. 20. Where money is payable by two or more persons jointly or severally, as by joint obligors, covenantors, makers, drawers, or indorsers, one action may be sustained and judgment recovered against all or any of said parties, by whom the money is payable, at the option of the plaintiff.

In this state of facts and of statutes, the note to Mrs. Chadwick not being paid, she brought suit upon it against Sykes alone, at law, in the court below, a court having jurisdiction both in equity and at common law.

The court below sustained the suit; and from its judgment in the matter this writ of error was taken.

Messrs. W. F. Mattingly and R. T. Merrick, for the plaintiff in error:

1st. There was no consideration for the note. The deed of trust to Hyde, executed previously to the deed of sale (or mortgage), in connection with which the note was given, pased Mrs. Chadwick's right of dower, and in the District, where the ancient rule of the English law, inherited by the District from the colonial law of Maryland, prevails, a widow has no dower in an equity of redemption.³ It will not do to allege that her mere execution of the deed was a sufficient consideration for the note.

2d. Even if she had a right of dower in the real estate, it was not her sole and separate property within the meaning of the law. The right of dower is not an estate in lands.⁴ If the contrary view is held to be law, then every married woman, whose husband happens to own real estate, has a sole and separate property, with reference to which she may contract.

3d. The note was a joint note, and being void as to her husband, one of the makers, the plaintiff was not entitled to recover.⁵

4th. This case, in no view of it, comes within the letter or spirit of the acts of Congress. Mrs. Chadwick has no separate property, and therefore could not make any contract as to it. The note itself could not be her separate estate, under the law, for the note is merely the evidence of the contract, which she was incapable of making. Moreover, it is void, as already said.

Messrs. A. G. Riddle, C. M. Hawley, and F. Miller, contra.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

The question is whether the note on which this suit is brought against Sykes is valid, as against the defendant, so as to sustain the present action. In aid of the plaintiff's case certain acts of Congress relating to the District of Columbia have been referred to. First, an act regulating the rights of property of married women in the District of Columbia, passed April 10th, 1869, by which it is enacted, in substance, that the right of a married woman to any property belonging to her at the time of marriage, or acquired during marriage, in any other way than by gift or conveyance from her husband, shall be as absolute as if she were a feme sole, and not subject to the disposal of her husband or liable for his debts; and she may convey or bequeath the same as if she were unmarried. Also, that any married woman may contract and sue and be sued in her own name in all matters having relation to her sole and separate property in the same manner as if she were unmarried. Secondly, an act to amend the law of the District of Columbia, in relation to judicial proceedings therein, passed February 22d, 1867, by the twentieth section of which it is enacted that where money is payable by two or more persons jointly or severally, as by joint obligors, covenantors, makers, drawers, or indorsers, one action may be sustained and judgment recovered against all or any of said parties by whom the money is payable, at the option of the plaintiff.

With regard to the first-mentioned statute, relating to a married woman's property possessed at the time of marriage or acquired afterwards, we think it clear that it does not refer to her contingent interest in her husband's estate, but to property owned by or coming to her independent of her husband—property which, but for the statute, he would acquire an interest in by right of marriage. The sole object of the statute was to prevent his acquiring such interest in her property. Her right of dower in his property stands as it did before the statute. She cannot dispose of it independently of her husband; nor can she, without his consent, separate it from his estate in the land.

Still her right of dower is a valuable interest, which she cannot be compelled to resign, and which the law very carefully protects from the control of her husband. When she does part with it an officer must examine her apart from her husband, to ascertain whether she does it freely and voluntarily. And whilst this interest is a valuable right of the wife, it is a corresponding incumbrance upon the land to which it attaches. By the aid of modern science it is capable of a definite valuation. Hence it is easy to ascertain whether an undue valuation is placed upon it. In this case no suggestion of that kind is made. For all that appears the transaction was made in good faith. At all events the parties to it cannot allege the contrary.

The wife's interest being valuable, and one that may be disposed of by her with her husband's concurrence, the question arises whether her release of her right of dower is a good consideration for a separate provision for her benefit, or of a promise to pay money to her separate use. And of this we have no doubt. The question would hardly have been raised had the arrangement been made with the purchaser instead of the vendors of the land, one of whom was the plaintiff's husband. But arrangements of this kind made with the husband are sustained in equity by very high authority. In Garlick v. Strong,⁶ where a husband who was about to sell his estate agreed with his wife that if she would release her dower she should share a portion of the purchase-money to her separate use, it was held by Chancellor Walworth that the agreement was valid, and that a note given by the purchaser to a trustee for the wife for the amount allowed to her in the arrangement became her separate property, and though the money due on the note was paid and invested by the trustee in a bond in the wife's name, which bond was afterwards disposed of by the husband without her consent, the fund was followed into the hands of the party receiving it with notice, and decreed to belong to the wife. The chancellor said: 'It is well settled that a postnuptial agreement between the husband and wife, by which property is set apart to her separate use, will be sustained in equity though void at law. The relinquishment of the dower in this case was a sufficient consideration to support this agreement on the part of the husband. Although as against creditors, whose debts existed at...