Case ID: scl_26/html/0032-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’Neall, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*David Ewart vs. M. G. Nagel and A. G. Nagel.
    A feme covert cannot be made a feme sole carrier under the custom, or under the Acts of the Legislature of 1823 and 1824.
    The privilege of a feme sole trader does not reach beyond buying and selling merchandize. S. P. 1 Hill, 429.
    Before O’Neall, J., at Columbia, Spring Term, 1840.
    This was an action against defendant, M. G. Nagel the wife of A. G. Nagel, (who was joined for conformity sake,) as a feme sole trader, to charge her with a loss of cotton shipped on a boat alleged to belong to her, called the Swan.
    The proof was that her husband, A. G. Nagel, received the cotton and signed the receipt as agent for M. G. Nagel. He generally acted in all matters about the boat. Mrs. Nagel had a store in Columbia, or rather one was carried on in her name. Her husband acted as her agent in every thing about it.
    He was insolvent and had no property : the property in his possession was considered and sold as the property of his wife. She was considered as the owner of the boat; but there was no proof on that matter further than mere reputation : for the possession in fact was by Major Nagel, her husband. She was also regarded as a free dealer.
    The loss of the cotton was proved, and the only question was whether Mrs. Nagel, a feme covert, could be made liable as a common carrier. I thought, and so instructed the jury, that there could not be such a thing as a feme sole trader in boating. That the character, with its privileges and liabilities, only existed in the mercantile business carried on by the wife separate and apart from the husband. His interference with the business would prevent the wife from being regarded as a feme sole trader. That the act of the Legislature had not extended the common law in this respect: it had added to the common law requisitions, the publication of a month’s notice of the intention to carry on a separate business, and to become a feme sole trader.
    That the only ground on which the defendant could be liable was, that the boat was her separate estate; and that hence earning for her freight, she would on that account be liable. The jury were told to enquire as to that fact, and if *they were satisfied of its truth, to find for the plaintiff, otherwise for the defendants.
    The jury found for the defendants. The plaintiff moves the Court of Appeals for a new trial, on the annexed ground.
    GROUNDS OF APPEAL.
    Because the evidence having been full, clear and uneontradicted, that the defendant, M. G. Nagel, was a free dealer and sole trader in the, business of merchandise, and of boating connected therewith ; that the store and boat belonged to her as a free dealer and sole trader, and were thereby protected from the creditors of the defendant, A. G. Nagle, who was notoriously and utterly insolvent, and who acted as her clerk and agent in the store and about the boat ; that as such free dealer and sole trader, she received the cotton of the plaintiff of the value of $1390 62 on board her said boat, to be carried to Charleston for certain freight, to be paid to her as such free dealer and sole trader ; and that the said cotton was never re-delivered to the plaintiff or his (actors, whereby ho suffered a loss of $1,390 62; the verdict of the jury was not only contrary to the said evidence, but without any evidence whatever, and was contrary to the law in relation to the subject matter of said evidence.
   Curia, per

O’Neall, J.

This Court is satisfied with, the instruction given by the presiding Judge, that “there cannot be such a thing as a feme sole trader in boating:” The other instruction that she might be liable in respect of the boat being her separate estate, is more doubtful : but as that was in favor of the plaintiff, and as the jury have found against the fact which was the predicate of that instruction, and as we think their verdict, in that behalf, ought not to be disturbed, it is unnecessary now to give a definite opinion on that point.

I will, in as few words as possible, assign the reasons why we think there cannot be a ferae sole trader in boating. The utmost latitude to which this extraordinary privilege can be extended, would be to allow it to attach to other business besides merchandise, which females can and usually do carry on without the aid of their husbands. Generally speaking, the custom ought to be strictly construed ; and there is little ^reason why we should give it a wider extension here than it had in London.

The Act of 1744, sec. 10, (P. L 190,) recognized the existence of feme sole traders, and fully justified the Court in applying the custom, as was dona in 1798, by the constitutional court, to the case of Newbiggin vs. Pillans and wife, (2 Bay, 164.) That case arose out of buying and selling merchandize. The Court, in that case, expressly recognize the custom, as stated in Mr. Turnbull’s argument, to be that “ where a feme trades by herself in one trade with which her husband doth not inter-meddle, and buys and sells in that trade, then the feme shall be sued, and the husband named only for conformity and if judgment be given against him, execution shall be only against the feme.” So in Surtell ads. Brailsford, (2 Bay, 333,) the Judges maintained the same doctrine, when they said that “ the defendant kept a shop and carried on business in her own name, apart from her husband, (if she ever had one) and in which he never intermeddled for the space of ten or twelve years, which constituted her a sole dealer at common law.” These two cases constituted the guide to the profession of the law: and it was, I think, the generally received opinion, that a feme covert could not acquire the character of a sole trader in any other way than by making out the proof of the facts required by the custom, until the cases of McGrath, vs. Robison, (1 Eq. Rep. 445,) and Miller vs. Tollison, (Harp. Eq. Rep. 145.) The first of these cases has been, by Judge Johnson, in the case of McDaniel vs. Cornwell, shown to be not inconsistent with the customs. The case of Miller vs. Tollison extended the custom to the business of tavern keeping, and it may be sustained on the ground that it is a business that females may and do carry on without the aid of their husbands ; but I confess that I should be little disposed to take that view, unless constrained so to do by the case to which I have referred. The Acts of 1823 and 1824, (pages 35 and 23) have been the fruitful source of many errors in this behalf. It was supposed that they had introduced a new mode of constituting feme coverts sole traders, when, in point of faet, they only recognized the custom, and imposed additional restrictions on its allowance. The case of McDaniel & Cornwell, (1 Hill 29,) corrected these errors By *it, it was held that the privilege of a feme sole trader arose out of the business of buying and selling merchandize, carried on by a feme covert without any intermeddling therewith by the husband, after a compliance, on her part, with the requisitions of the Acts of’23 and ’24.

This brief review of the law of this State fully sustains the position that a feme covert could not be made a feme sole carrier, under the custom, or under the Acts of the Legislature. If we were, however, free to reason about it, as an original proposition, we must come to the same conclusion. It is utterly inconsistent with the duties of the wife to the husband and to her children, that she should engage in a business which would deprive them of her society and assistance, which would send her out into the busy world to mingle with all classes, and lose that distinctive modesty of character which makes her at home and abroad the ornament and the directress of society. But it is argued that the business of a common carrier is such as would make the person engaged in it a trader within the meaning of the English statutes of bankruptcy. This may be so, and still it will not help the plaintiff. For the term trader, when applied to a feme covert, is used in a restricted sense. Its meaning is pointed out by the custom of London, which , has been allowed in this State. According to that, it does not reach beyond buying and selling merchandize.

Gregg, for the motion. De Saussure and Black, contra.

The motion is dismissed :

Richardson, Earle, Butler, JJ., concurred: Evans and Gantt, JJ. absent. 
      
      
         3 Stat. 420. See also Act of 1712. 2 Stat. 593. An.
      
     
      
      а) 6 Stat. 212. Id. 236 § 2. An.
      
     
      
       See Dial v. Kneuffer, 3 Rich. 78. An.