Woodward v. Spurr

• Decision Date: 27 February 1886
• Parties: WOODWARD v. SPURR, and others.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

141 Mass. 283

6 N.E. 521

WOODWARD v. SPURR, and others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

February 27, 1886

COUNSEL

F.V. Fuller, for plaintiff.

Reed & Dean, for defendant.

OPINION

DEVENS J.

No appeal lay to the superior court from the decree of the court of insolvency expunging the plaintiff's claim. Pub.St. c 157, §§ 15-35; Woodward v. Spurr, 138 Mass. 592. Her remedy, if she is entitled to any, is therefore, by this petition, addressed to this court by virtue of its general superintendence and jurisdiction over proceedings in insolvency, while, where no special provision is made, this court may, "upon the bill, petition, or proper process of any party aggrieved, hear and determine the case as a court of equity." The rights of a party are to be governed by the provisions of the insolvent law.

In the case at bar the plaintiff is not a party aggrieved, unless the claim she makes against the estate of the insolvent was provable under that law. The plaintiff, who originally sought a remedy by appeal from the order of the insolvency court on account of its presumed error in expunging her claim, cannot be decreed to have waived her rights to bring this bill.

The rescript in the case of Woodward v. Spurr, which is the suit referred to, was filed February 27, 1885, and the order for the second dividend on the estate of Woodward was made on May 21, 1885, while this bill was not filed until June 27, 1885. But it appears by the agreed facts that there are still funds in the hands of the assignees applicable to the discharge of the indebtedness of Woodward, and the plaintiff does not seek to disturb the distribution already made.

The claim which the plaintiff complains to have been wrongfully expunged from proof by the court of insolvency was upon a note of hand made by a husband to a wife in consideration of a loan of money by her, from her own separate property, to him, on his promise to repay the same. The various statutes authorizing a married woman to make contracts as if she were sole have not in any way authorized contracts between husband and wife. Pub.St. c. 147, § 2; St.1885, c. 304. That a promissory note or other contract for the payment of money lent by the wife to the husband is absolutely void, has been repeatedly held. Ingham v. White, 4 Allen, 412; Fowle v. Torrey, 135 Mass. 95; Kneil v Egleston, 140 Mass. 202; S.C. 4 N.E. 573; Whitney v Closson, 138 Mass. 49; Bassett v. Bassett, 112 Mass. 99.

It is the contention of defendant that, in any proceeding to which the husband is not necessarily a party, the claim on such a contract may be enforced. It was, however, held in Ingham v. White, ubi supra, that when the wife had transferred a promissory note to a third person, which had been made by the husband to her, so that mere disability to sue arising out of the invested relations was removed, such person could not maintain an action. This claim did not constitute such a debt as is described in Pub.St. c. 157, § 26, nor could it have been verified by the oath, as required in section 29. Had it been originally disallowed in the court of insolvency, and an appeal from such disallowance taken, which might have been done under section 36, it would have been impossible for the plaintiff to have set forth her claim "as in a declaration in an action at law," according to section 37. The necessary allegations would have shown that she had no valid claim. If, as required by that section, proceedings were thereupon had as "in the pleadings, trial, and determination of the cause in an action at law commenced and prosecuted in the usual manner," no recovery could have been had thereon. The promissory note was a nullity, and it was only debts that were provable at law, and might therefore have been enforced by action from which the discharge in insolvency released the debtor when the order appealed from was made. While this court, in the exercise of its supervisory power, is to hear and determine the cases of parties aggrieved by the action of the court of insolvency, in equity, it was not intended thereby to enlarge the classes of claims which could be proved, giving to the court a wider jurisdiction than the court of insolvency, but to guide and govern that court in the jurisdiction committed to it.

We have discussed the case without reference to St.1884, c. 293 which provides for the proof of equitable liabilities against estates in insolvency. This statute went into effect May 28, 1884, and the order by which the plaintiff claims to have been aggrieved was made on the seventeenth of March, 1884. It is this order which, by this proceeding, the plaintiff claims to have declared null and...