Case ID: cal_49/html/0308-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court, Wallace, C. J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 3,871.]
    J. H. BLUMENBERG v. SARAH J. ADAMS.
    When Wife may Contract.—If the wife was abandoned by her husband before she came to this State, and the husband has not been in the State, she is clothed with full power to make contracts here, as a femme sole.
    
    Appeal from the District Court, Twelfth Judicial District, City and County of San Francisco.
    The defendant, on the 9th day of August, 1870, contracted with the plaintiff to lease from him for thirty six months from the 13th of August, the third story of a building on the southwest corner of Sansome and Pine streets, San Francisco. She executed a written lease. The rent was payable monthly. On the 5th of April, 1871, there was due on. the lease $588, and this suit was brought to recover the same. The defendant set up in her answer that she was the wife of one Gilbert Y. Adams, who resided at Titusville, Pennsylvania. Special issues were submitted to a jury, and, in answer thereto, the jury found that the defendant was the wife of said Adams when she made the lease; that her husband abandoned her before she came to this State; that he had never been in this State, and that she had resided here between two and three years. The plaintiff recovered judgment, and the defendant appealed.
    
      W. W. Crane, Jr., for the Appellant.
    The lease was executed by the defendant while she was a married woman. It is consequently absolutely void, and she is not-liable upon it. (Maclay v. Love, 25 Cal. 367; Brown v. Orr, 29 Cal. 122; Althof v. Conbeim, 38 Cal. 233; Belloc v. Davis, 38 Cal. 256; Smith v. Greer, 31 Cal. 478; Manchester v. Sable, 47 Barb. 156.)
    
      Joseph M. Kinley, for the Respondent.
    If the husband had never been in this State, and abandoned his wife, the defendant, before she came here, she is clothed with full power to contract as a femme sole. (Kay v. Dutchess De Pienne, 3 Cary, 123, 133; Dernley v. Mazerine, 1 Salk, 116; Robinson v. Reynolds, 1 Aik. 174; De Gallion v. L. Aigle, 1 B. &. P. 356; Story on Contracts, Sec. 89, p. 78 and note; Gregory v. Pienne, 4 Metcalf R. 478; Commonwealth v. Collins, 1 Mass. 116; Chouton v. Merry, 3 Missouri, 254; Ayer v. Warner, 47 Maine, 217.)
   By the Court, Wallace, C. J.:

The defendant must be regarded as a femme sole when the lease was executed by her. She had resided in this State some two years before then, and previously to her coming to California had been abandoned by her husband who had never been within this State.

Judgment and order affirmed.

Neither Mr. Justice Rhodes nor Mr. Justice Niles expressed an opinion.