Case ID: dc_11/html/0048-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

True W. Twombly v. Ephraim S. Randall, Trustee, et al.
    Equity. No. 6947.
    Decided February 23, 1880.
    When personal property is purchased by the husband and, at the same time, mortgaged by him to secure, payment of the purchase money, such mortgage may be executed by the husband alone, and does not require the signature of his wife to make it valid. The provisions of secs. 797 and 798 B-. S. I). C. do not apply to such a case.
    STATEMENT 0E THE CASE.
    This was a bill in equity setting forth that plaintiff had purchased certain goods and chattels and household effects, giving his note secured by a deed of trust upon the same, to secure the payment of the purchase money. That default being imple in the payment of the note, the trustee now threatened to proceed under said trust and to remove all of said personal property, &c., and sell them at public auction to satisfy said indebtedness. That at the time of the execution of said deed of trust, complainant was a married man, his wife, Alice B. Twombly living with him at the time, and. still continuing to live with him, both of them being then and there residents of the District of Columbia that said deed of trust was not executed in any manner by his said wife. That the property so .mortgaged being exempt from attachment, levy and seizure, the deed of trust is invalid by reason of the non-joinder of plaintiff’s wife in the execution thereof as required by the act of Congress of February 5, 1867, (R. S. D, C., secs. 797 and 798).‘
    That statute, after providing (sec. 797) for the exemption of certain property from distraint, attachment, levy and sale, on execution or decree, declares (section 798) : “No deed of trust, bill of sale, or mortgage upon any exempted articles, shall be binding or valid unless signed by the wife of the debtor, if he be married and living with his wife.”
    The bill concludes with a prayer that the defendants, their agents and attorneys, be enjoined from taking possession of selling or offering to sell said goods and household furniture or in any way interfering with plaintiff’s possession thereof.
    On final hearing in the court below the bill was dismissed, and complainant appealed to the General Term.
    Thomas F. Miller for complainant.
    W. H. Browne for defendants.
   By the Court:

When property is purchased by the husband, and at the same time mortgaged by him to secure payment of the purchase money, such mortgage may be executed by the husband alone, and does not require the signature of his wife to make it valid. And sections 797 and 798 of the R. S. D. C., act of Congress of February 5, 1867, do not exempt property so purchased from the operation of the lien created by such mortgage to secure the purchase money, notwithstanding that such property may not exceed in value the amount exempted under said act from execution, &c.

The deed of trust from Twombly to Randall, trustee, is valid ; and the decree below is affirmed.