Case ID: dc_8/html/0163-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Wylie", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WM. DAVISON & CO. vs. VIRGINIA WHITTLESEY ET AL.
    In Equity.
    No. 3048.
    I. The dower-right of a widow, which has not heen assigned to her, may be subjected, in equity, to the payment of her own debts contracted since the death of her husband.
    II. When it is manifest that an assignment of dower by metes and bounds is not practicable, a receiver will be appointed to take charge of and rent out the property until the widow’s share of the rents and profit s shall be sufficient to satisfy the judgment and costs.
    STATEMENT OR THE CASE.
    The bill was filed by a judgment-creditor, setting forth the judgment at law against the defendant, Virginia Whittlesey, for the sum of $1,545.58, and that execution thereon had been returned unsatisfied. The bill also alleges that one Comfort S. Whittlesey, husband of the said Virginia, departed this life intestate in 1864, seized in fee-simple of á lot of ground in said District which is described; and that his widow, the said Virginia, is entitled to her dower-estate therein, and complainants ask that such interest may be subjected to the payment of their judgment. The other defendants are heirs of the intestate, and the answers admit the material averments of the bill.
    
      Leigh Robinson and Reginald Fendall for complainants:
    Possible and contingent interests, far more vague and indeterminable than a right of dower, which may at any moment be ascertained and assigned, are susceptible of equitable transfer. However incapable of assignment at law, a chose in action, if it be in substance a right of property, is treated in equity as of that character, and may be transferred by an assignment or agreement to assign. A widow’s right of dower is no exception to this rule. “The want of formal assignment of dower,” said Lord Cowper, “ is nothing in equity, since the widow’s right in conscience is the same as if it had been made.” Hamilton vs. Mohun, 1 P. W., 122. In this forum, therefore, a wife’s right of dower is practically susceptible of sale. Baldwin vs. Banister, 3 P. W., 251. This species of equitable transfer has been repeatedly enforced in the courts of the States of this Union.
    
      Wm. John Miller for defendants.
   Mr. Justice Wylie

delivered the opinion of the court:

The only question to be decided in this case is, whether the dower-right of a widow', which has not been assigned to her, may be subjected in equity to the payment of her own debts, contracted since the death of her husband. At law, until after dower has been set off to the widow, she is regarded as possessing no estate in the property which she can alien or subject to the payment of debt; so that neither by process of law, nor by her own act, can her right be assigned so as to vest it in another. She may release this right it is true, but only so as to unite it with the fee. (See Seymour vs. Minturn, 17 Johns. R., 167; Jackson vs. Aspel, 20 ib., 412; Croade vs. Ingraham, 13 Pick. R., 33; Blain vs. Harrison, 11 Ill. R., 384; Gooch vs. Atkyns, 14 Mass., 378.)

But in equity it is otherwise. It was decided by the Chancellor in Tompkins vs. Fonda, 4 Paige Ch. R., 448, that the widow has no right, in conscience, to deprive her creditors of the benefit of her right of dower for the satisfaction of their claims, by continuing in joint possession with the heirs and. neglecting to ask for a formal assignment; which assignment if made would enable the creditors to reach her dower by execution.

It is manifest in this case that an assignment of dower by metes and bounds is not practicable. The widow’s interest can be reached only through the rents and profits. A receiver must therefore be appointed, with power to tal^e charge of and rent out the property in question until, from the widow’s share of the rents and profits, the judgment in favor of the complainants shall have been satisfied; also the costs of this snit