Young v. Hart

• Decision Date: 11 June 1903
• Citation: 44 S.E. 703,101 Va. 480
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: YOUNG. v. HART.

44 S.E. 703

101 Va. 480

YOUNG.

v.HART.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

June 11, 1903.

MARRIED WOMEN—CONTRACTS—CONFLICT OF LAWS—ACTION—PLEADING.

1. A contract of a married woman, valid where made and to be performed, is valid everywhere, unless she be domiciled in a state where the law of the domicile imposes a total incapacity to contract on the part of its married women.

¶ 1. See Husband and Wife, vol. 26, Cent. Dig. § 273.

2. As to the remedy upon foreign contracts, the law of the forum governs.

3. Under section 2, Act March 7, 1900 (Acts 1899-1900, p. 1240, c. 1139), which provides that a married woman may contract and be contracted with, sue and be sued, in the same manner and with the same consequences as if she were unmarried, an allegation that a married woman owned separate estate, and that the contract sued on was made with reference to such separate estate, is wholly unnecessary.

Error to Circuit Court of City of Danville.

Action by Josephine B. Hart against H. M. Young and Sadie S. Young. Judgment for plaintiff, and Sadie S. Young brings error. Affirmed.

Blackford, Horsley & Blackford and Peat-ross & Harris, for plaintiff in error.

Berkeley & Harrison, for defendant in error.

BUCHANAN, J. In February, 1901, Josephine B. Hart, the defendant in error, instituted her action of debt against H. M. Young and Sadie S., his wife, upon two promissory notes. The notes are alike in every respect except as to amounts, one being for $7,000 and the other for $537. The following is a copy of the larger note:

"$7,000. Charleroi, Pa., April 8, 1895.

"One year after date, for value received, we or either of us, promise to pay Josephine B. Hart or order the sum of seven thousand dollars with interest at six per cent. per annum at Bank of Kentucky Louisville, Ky.

"H. M. Young.

"Sadie S. Young."

There was a Judgment by default against the husband. The wife made defense, and upon the trial of the cause all matters of law and fact having been submitted to the decision of the court, there was a personal judgment against the wife for the aggregate amount of the notes. To that judgment this writ of error was awarded upon the application of the wife.

It appears that the plaintiff, Mrs. Hart, after the death of her husband, about the year 1879, received $4,000 or $5,000 from insurance policies on his life, which she placed in the hands of Mr. Young for investment At that time both Mrs. Hart and Mr. Young resided in Louisville, in the state of Kentucky. About the year 1885 the latter, having in the meantime married, removed to Kansas City, in the state of Missouri, retaining the money of Mrs. Hart for the purposes of investment, as she contends, or as her debtor, as he insists. In the year 1890 Mrs. Hart, upon advice, went to Kansas City, made a settlement with Mr. Young, and took his and his wife's joint note for the sum of $5,500, payable at the Bank of Kentucky in Louisville, state of Kentucky, July 1, 1890. The note was not paid, and in January, 1891, the parties, by agreement, met in Chicago, in the state of Illinois, where Young and his wife made and delivered three promissory notes of equal amounts for the balance due on the Kansas City note, which were all payable in the city of Chicago. Young and wife, after residing in the last-named city for some time, removed to Charleroi, in the state of Pennsylvania, where the notes in suit were made and delivered by Young and wife to the agent of Mrs. Hart for the principal and interest due on the Chicago notes, which were then and there surrendered.

At the time the notes sued on were made, there is no question that the state of Pennsylvania was the actual domicile, if not the legal domicile, of Young and wife. The capacity of the wife to make the notes is put in issue by the pleadings. She insists that the debt for which the notes were given was her husband's debt, and that she was merely surety thereon, and that neither under the laws of Pennsylvania, where the notes were made and delivered, nor under the laws of Kentucky, where they were to be paid, were they valid contracts as to her.

By the Pennsylvania act of June 8, 1893 (Act No. 284, p. 344), it is provided by section 1 "that hereafter a married woman shall have the same rights and powers as an unmarried person to acquire, own, possess, contract, use, lease, sell or otherwise dispose of any property of any kind, real, personal or mixed, and either possession or expectancy, and may exercise the said right and power in the same manner and to the same extent as an unmarried person, but she may not mortgage or convey her real property unless her husband join in such mortgage or conveyance."

Section 2 of the act provides that "hereafter a married woman may in the same manner and to the same extent as an unmarried person make any contract in writing or otherwise, which is necessary, appropriate, convenient or advantageous to the exercise and enjoyment of the rights and powers granted by the foregoing section, but she may not become accommodation endorser, maker, guarantor, or surety for another, and she may not execute or acknowledge a deed or other written instrument conveying or mortgaging her real property unless her husband joins in such mortgage or conveyance."

By section 2127 of the Kentucky Statutes of 1899 it is provided, among other things, that "no part of a married woman's estate shall be subjected to the payment or satisfaction of any liability upon a contract made after marriage to answer for the debt, de fault or misdoing of another, including her husband, unless such estate shall have been...