Case ID: njl_7/html/0033-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Barzillai Ivins ads. Uriah French and Mary, his wife.
    JUDGMENT ON BOND AND WARRANT OP ATTORNEY.
    Where a bond and warrant of attorney to confess judgment is given to a married woman, the judgment cannot be entered up in tiro name of the husband and-wife, in the ordinary way of entering up judgments on bonds and warrants of attorney, (i. e. by application to a single judge, in manner directed by tlie act), but there must be a special application to the court.
    This was a judgment entered on a bond and warrant of attorney, under the “act directing the modo of entering judgments *upon bonds with warrants of attorney to confess judgment,” passed 24th February, 1820. Rev. Laios 685. The bond was given “ to Mary French, her executors, administrators,” &c., and the warrant of attorney authorized the attorney to confess judgment “ to Mary French, her executors, administrators, or assigns.” The judgment was entered up in the name of Uriah French, and Mary, his wife.
    Ewing, applied to the court to set aside the judgment entered in this case for irregularity. The warrant of attorney, he said, was to confess a judgment to “ Mary French.” It was either given to her while a feme sole, or while a feme covert. If it was given when a feme sole, the judgment could not have been entered up in the ordinary manner, but must have been upon an application to the court, founded on an affidavit of the marriage. 3 Bur. 1469; 1 Salk. 117, pi. 9. If this was a warrant of attorney given after her-marriage, then the judgment is irregularly entered up in the name of the husband and wife; for a warrant of attorney to confess a judgment to “ Mary French ” will not authorize the entry of a judgment in the name of “ Uriah French and Mary, his wife.” The rule, with regard "to warrants of attorney, was very strict, and they must be strictly pursued. 2 Sel. Brae. 88-9; 1 Com. Dig. 644, a. 11; 645, -o. 13; 2 Wils. 3; 1 South. 358, Read v. Bainbridge.
    
    
      Wall, contra, said
    he did not pretend that the bond and warrant of attorney were given to a feme sole. ITe admitted they were given to Mary French, while a feme covert, but contended that the judgment was' properly entered under the act, in the name of the husband and wife. “ The act made it -lawful for the obligee or obligees, his, her, or their executors or assigns, to apply to any justice and have judgment entered.” See sec. 1,'Rev. Daws 685. That where the bond was given to a married woman, the husband was, in contemplation of law, the obligee, and not the wife; the wife could not sue alone upon it. That she might, in all cases, join in an action with her husband, when the cause of action would survive to her, or when she was the meritorious cause of action, and there had been an express contract to her, and that she must join when the cause of action would necessarily survive to her. 1 Wils. 224; 2 Maul Sel. 396; 1 Chit. Rl. 17. This judgment, then, being entered in the name of the *husband arid wife was, in the eye of the law, a judgment entered in the name of the obligee, and fell completely within the words of the act) 
      which were very broad, and not confined to tlio person named in the bond, but embraced all persons to whom by implication of law it is payable.
    Ewing, in reply.
    Whether the gentleman is right or wrong in his position, that the husband is ,the obligee, does not vary the case here. The question is, how extensive is the warrant of attorney ? Does it authorize the entry of a judgment in the name of any person who is not named in the warrant ? I contend it does not.
   Per Curiam.

We are of opinion that the judgment could not be entered up in tho ordinary manner; but there ought to have been a special application to the court. — We give no opinion upon the other point.

Judgment set aside.