White v. Williams

• Decision Date: 14 October 1929
• Docket Number: 28011
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WHITE v. WILLIAMS et al

124 So. 64

154 Miss. 897

WHITE v. WILLIAMS et al

No. 28011

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 14, 1929

Division B

1 PLEADING. Bill to annul marriage, not averring that after marriage parties lived together ashusband and wife, should be considered as admitting those facts.

Where bill to annul marriage between deceased and defendant did not aver that after marriage defendant and deceased lived together and recognized each other as husband and wife, bill should be considered as admitting those facts, since pleading is to be taken most strongly against the pleader.

2 MARRIAGE. Marriage, not annulled, on ground husband was insane, while parties were living, was legal as against husband's relatives' rights of heirship.

Marriage not having been annulled, on ground that husband was insane at time of marriage, while husband and wife were both living, marriage was legal as against any right of heirship on part of husband's relatives, since insanity of one spouse did not render marriage void, but voidable only, and marriage could not be attacked collaterally.

HON. V. J. STRICKER, Chancellor.

APPEAL from chancery court of Yazoo county, HON. V. J. STRICKER, Chancellor.

Suit by Jack Williams and others against Sophie White, individually and as administratrix of the estate of Clem White, deceased. From a decree overruling a demurrer, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

Ruth Campbell, of Yazoo City, for appellant.

Insanity at the time of the marriage does not make void the matrimonial contract.

Ellis v. Ellis, 119 So. 304; L. R. A. 1916C, p. 702; Mackey v. Peters, App. D. C. 341; Wiser v. Lockwood, 42 Vt. 720; 18 R. C. L. 447; 2 Schouler on Marriage and Divorce (6 Ed.), p. 1372; Guthery v. Wetzel, 205 Mo.App. 664, 226 S.W. 626.

When marriage was placed under statute it made the marriage of a sane and insane person a valid and lawful marriage.

Smith v. Smith, 47 Miss. 211.

The next of kin cannot make a collateral attack on a marriage which is not void, but only voidable.

Smith v. Smith, 47 Miss. 211; Wilson v. Wilson, 104 Miss. 304; Ellis v. Ellis, 119 So. 347.

Where a marriage is voidable merely it is valid for civil purposes until its nullity has been pronounced by a competent court which may be done only during the lifetime of the parties, the marriage being good ab initio after the death of either of the parties for all civil purposes.

Barbour & Henry, of Yazoo City, for appellees.

The common law and not the statute law governs this case, because the common law has not been superseded by any statute prescribing how an insane person may be released from marriage, the only limitation of the statute being on the spouse of an insane person.

Wilson v. Wilson, 104 Miss. 347.

It is immaterial whether this is held to be a voidable marriage or one void ab initio.

Sims v. Sims, 122 Miss. 745.

In Mississippi there is no statute making a marriage merely voidable or denying the right of the heirs of the deceased person to institute a suit and the only Mississippi case which appellees find was one instituted by the heirs of the person alleged to have been insane at the time of the marriage.

Ward v. Dulaney, 23 Miss. 410.

There is nothing in the decision of Ellis v. Ellis, in 119 So. 304, which would prevent an affirmance of this case.

The court did not intend to suggest that the statute regulating suits for divorce by spouses of insane persons and limiting their rights upset the whole fundamental law that an insane person is not bound by his contracts, and that fraud vitiates everything it touches. Without doubt the relatives of an insane person, or any next friend of an insane person, can still file bills to annul marriages of insane persons designedly entered into by parties seeking the property of insane persons, and the fundamental law in regard to the contracts of insane persons and fraudulent contracts still apply to the transaction of marriage.

OPINION

ANDERSON, J.

Appellees filed their bill against appellant in the chancery court of Yazoo county, under sections 2790, 2791, Code of 1906 (Hemingway's Code 1927, sections 325, 326), to have themselves declared the sole heirs at law of Clem White, deceased, and to that end have set aside and annulled, so far as they are concerned, the marriage of appellant and deceased, and to have appellant removed as administratrix of the estate of the deceased. Appellant demurred to the bill, which demurrer was by the court overruled. From the decree overruling the demurrer, appellant was granted an appeal to settle the principles of the cause. The bill, leaving off the formal part and the prayer, follows:

"Petitioners Jack Williams, a citizen and resident of Washington county, Mississippi, and Indinan Demby, a citizen and resident of Perry county, Alabama, and Lee Oames and Annie Holmes, citizens and residents of Bolivar county, Mississippi, and Lou Anger, a citizen and resident of Leflore county, Mississippi, would respectfully show unto the court that they are respectively brother and sister, and nephew and nieces of Clem White, and his sole legal heirs and next of kin, the said Clem White having died November 17, 1927, intestate, in Yazoo county, Mississippi, his fixed place of residence, leaving certain real estate and personal property in said county; that one Sophie Jones White, claiming to be the wife of Clem White, deceased, qualified as administratrix of his estate, but that her marriage to the said Clem White was not a legal marriage, because the same was contracted just four weeks before the death of the said Clem White, at a time when he was non compos mentis, and incapable of entering into any contract, at a time when he was suffering from pellagra of the brain, and in no physical or mental condition to understand the nature of the supposed marriage contract he was entering into, or to give his...