Woodward v. Woodward

• Decision Date: 21 February 1899
• Citation: 49 S.W. 1001,148 Mo. 241
• Parties: WOODWARD v. WOODWARD et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

49 S.W. 1001

148 Mo. 241

WOODWARD v. WOODWARD et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

February 21, 1899.

HUSBAND AND WIFE — SEPARATE ESTATE — EQUITY — PARTIES.

1. The right of a wife to resort to an equity suit against her husband to protect her separate property is not taken away by Rev. St. 1889, § 6869, in the absence of a prohibitory provision, even though it give her a right to sue him at law.

2. Where title to land is taken in the name of the wife, the cash payment being made with $500 of her money, and her note for $295, in which her husband joined, is given for the balance, she is the sole owner of the land, though he pays $240 of the note out of his earnings on this land and his own, there being no agreement that he should have an interest in the land by reason thereof; and he is not entitled to compensation for improving the land.

3. Under the married woman's act of 1889 (Rev. St. 1889, § 6869), making land purchased in the name of the wife, with her separate money, her separate estate, and the income, increase, and profits thereof are hers, the husband's curtesy initiate does entitle him to the rents and profits during coverture.

4. The wife's right to her separate estate does not depend on her living with her husband.

5. The wife, in suit to enjoin the exercise of control over her property, and to require an accounting by her husband, who assumes control and collects the rents, properly joins with him, as defendant, the tenant, who asserts that he is bound to pay the rents to the husband.

Appeal from circuit court, Greene county; James T. Neville, Judge.

Suit by Belle Woodward against James Woodward and another. Decree for plaintiff. Defendants appeal. Affirmed.

The plaintiff is the wife of the defendant James Woodward. They were married in June, 1889. At the time of her marriage, she had about $1,000, which she had inherited from her father. At the solicitation of her husband, she invested $500 of this money, in January, 1891, in a tract of land, containing 18 acres, in Greene county. For a balance of $295 she executed her note, in which her husband joined her. On this note the defendant, her husband, has paid $241.75, out of his own means and earnings. The tract adjoined a small farm of 20 acres owned by the husband, and, after the purchase, he cultivated and used it in common with his own land. He also set out an apple orchard on it. In 1895 plaintiff sued defendant Woodward for a divorce, and was defeated in the action. Since then she has lived apart from her husband, and supported herself and two children born of this marriage. Thompson, the other defendant, is a tenant of defendant Woodward, in charge of the whole 38 acres. There is no dwelling house on the 18 acres, in which plaintiff could live with her children. In her petition she charges the above facts, and that her husband collected all the rents and profits of the land for 1895, and is assuming and exercising control of said tract; that she has never authorized him so to do; that the said tenant is cultivating and occupying said lands without plaintiff's consent, and, against her protest, asserts that he is bound to pay the rents to plaintiff's husband; that said rents and profits are her sole reliance for the support of herself and children; that she is without remedy at law, wherefore she prays that James Woodward be required to account to her for said rents and profits by him received from her said lands, and that both defendants, their servants and agents, be forever enjoined and restrained from using or exercising control over plaintiff's said land, and that plaintiff be put in possession and control of the same. Defendant, in his answer, somewhat amplified the foregoing facts, and relied upon the facts that plaintiff had left him without just cause, had sued him for divorce, and failed to obtain it; that he afterwards invited plaintiff to return to his home, but she refused to do so; wherefore he says she has no equity, and put herself in a position that a court of equity will not aid her. The circuit court granted a perpetual injunction restraining defendants from interfering with plaintiff in the use and control of said tract. Defendants appeal, and assign numerous errors.

H. E. Howell, for appellants. G. A. Watson and Geo. Pepperdine, for respondent.

GANTT, P. J. (after stating the facts).

The mode of procedure is challenged. It is urged that plaintiff's remedy is at law, by unlawful detainer or ejectment. That a wife might resort to a court of chancery, in a suit against her husband, to protect her separate estate, there can be no doubt. Walter v. Walter, 48 Mo. 140; Story, Eq. Pl. § 61; Sackman v. Sackman, 143 Mo. 576, 45 S. W. 264. But it is assumed by counsel that section 6869, Rev. St. 1889, creates a legal estate in the wife, and that she should sue her husband at law for a conversion of her estate, or where, as in this case, it is land, she should bring ejectment or unlawful detainer. While the act is very broad and comprehensive as to the wife's property rights, it will be observed that it does not, in express terms at least, authorize her to sue her husband at law. In Ilgenfritz v. Ilgenfritz, 49 Mo. App. 127, it was ruled that the statute did not abrogate the common-law rule that a wife could not sue her husband at law, as has been held by this court in Walter v. Walter, 48 Mo. 140, and Rieper v. Rieper, 79 Mo. 352. But, conceding that the statute has conferred upon the wife the right to sue her husband directly at law, it by no means follows that she may not still sue in equity, as she could prior to the enactment of the statute. It is a most familiar rule that, when a remedy exists in equity, a subsequent grant of a remedy at law will not oust a court of equity of its jurisdiction, unless the...