Case ID: us-ct-cl_8/html/0330-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Nott, J., Nott, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MRS. SYKES' CASE. Emma P. Sykes v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      A feme sole is the owner of an imdivided half of a plantation in Mississippi. She marries, and subsequent to the marriage the husband purchases the remaining undivided half. JProm that time they Iceep and work the plantation as tenants in common, each contributing equally for that purpose, she owning half the slaves and personal property in her own right. In January, 1865, the husband dies. At Che lime of his death there is on the plantation a quantity of cotton. Mghly-eight bales of this are seized by the Treasxmy agents in July, 1865, upon the ground that they were sold by the husband in his life-time to the rebel government. The wife brings suit under the Abandoned or captured property Act for half the proceeds. She calls witnesses to prove the law of Mississippi.
    
    I. The Court of Claims has general territorial jurisdiction. It never finds, as a matter of fact, the law of any State, and always administers the laws of different States by taking judicial cognizance of them. Its action in this respect is impliedly approved by that of the Supreme Court in Mrs. Mahan’s Case, (ante., p. 137.)
    
      II. The law of Mississippi provides that every species or description of property, whether consisting of real or personal estate, and all money, rights, and credits which may he owned by, or belonging to, any single woman, shall continue to be the separate property of such woman as fully after her marriage as it was before. (Eevised Code Miss., 1857, p. 335, art. 23.) And that such property and “ the products of either real or personal estate” “ shall also inure to the wife as her separate property.” (Id., p. 336, art. 24.) And that any married woman “ may hire out her slaves, rent her land, or malee any contract for the use thereof.” (Id., p. 336, art. 25.) Under these provisions, where a woman before marriage owns an undivided half of a plantation, her husband cannot impair her enjoyment of her separate property by purchasing of a third person the remaining undivided interest in it, and where they contiuue to occupy the plantation as tenants in common, the wife will acquire title to one-half of the products as her separate property.
    III. Where, by the law of a State, a married woman may hold real estate, and enjoy the products thereof as her separate property, she may maintain an action in the Court of Claims for half of the proceeds in the Treasury derived from cotton raised and captured on the plantation belonging to herself and husband jointly.
    
      The Reporters’ statement of the case.
    , The court found the following facts:
    The claimant, prior to her marriage, was the owner of the undivided half of a plantation in Mississippi. In November, 1857, she married. Subsequent to the marriage the husband purchased the remaining undivided half of the plantation, and from that time they occupied and worked the plantation jointly as tenants in common, each contributing equally for that purpose, and she owning half the slaves and personal property on the plantation in her own right. In January, 1885, the husband died. At the time of his death there was upon the plantation a quantity of cotton which had been grown thereon. Eighty-eight bales of this cotton were seized by the Treasury agents of the United States in July, 1865, upon the ground that they had been sold by the husband in his life-time to the government of the Confederate States. The eighty-eight bales were sold by the cotton-agent of the United States in New York, bringing $76.19 per bale after defraying the expenses, and the net proceeds, amounting to $6,704.72, are in the Treasury.
    
      Mr. J. W. Denver for the claimant.
    
      Mr. Alexander Johnston (with whom was the Assistant Attorney-General) for the defendants.
   Nott, J.,

delivered the opiaion of the court:

The only question presented by this case is, whether a married woman living in Mississippi was the legal owner of a share in the undivided products of a plantation of which she owned the undivided half part as her separate property, the husband being the owner of the remaining half part, and the two owning jointly the slaves and personal property, and contributing .equally to carry on the business of the plantation.

The claimant has sought to establish the law of Mississippi by calling witnesses to prove it as a foreign law. That practice is expensive and inconvenient on the one hand, and on the other wholly unnecessary and inetfectual. This court is one of general territorial jurisdiction — “ a court of the United States for the United States, and for no particular State or district. Its jurisdiction is as great and as limited elsewhere as here, and here as elsewhere.” — Jones & Brown’s Case, (1 C. Cls. R., p. 398.) It has never in any instance found the law of a State as a matter of fact, and has, in repeated instances, administered the laws of different States by taking judicial cognizance of them. If any doubt on the subject can exist, it must be set at rest by the action of the Supreme Court in the recent case of Mrs. Mahan, (ante., p. 137.)

The law of Mississippi provides that “ every species and description of property, whether consisting of real or personal estate, and all money, rights, and credits which may he owned hy or belong to any single woman, shall contirme to he the separate property of such woman as fully after her marriage as it was before.” (Revised Code Miss., 1857, p. 335, art. 23.) And it is further provided that such property “ shall he owned, used, and enjoyed hy such married woman as her own separate property;” and it is again provided, by an additional enactment, that the “ products ” “ of either real or personal estate,” " owned hy any married woman at the time of her marriage” shall also inure to the wife as her separate property.” (Id., p. 336, art. 24.) And there is also an express provision that “ any married woman may hire out her slaves, rent her lands, or malee any contract for the use thereof.” (Id., p. 336, art. 25.) We do not perceive, in view of these comprehensive and most carefully expressed provisions, how doubt can be seriously entertained as to the wife’s acquiring title to one-half of the “ products ” of the plantation. Most certainly the legislature never intended that a husband could impair the wife’s enjoyment of her separate property by his purchasing of a third person an undivided -interest in it.

Some further and more difficult questions might arise as to the husband’s control over property which was the product of their joint capital and labor, or of his implied authority to dispose of his interest in the product to third persons, and of their rights and equities when they occupy the position of purchasers from him in good faith and for a valuable consideration, but those questions are not presented here. The evidence stops with the wife’s legal interest in the captured property, and does not establish any act of the husband which might divest her of her legal title. A paper is indeed in the record purporting to be the official return of a Confederate agent which reports the deceased husband of the claimant as having sold to him eighty-eight bales of cotton. But it was settled in Schaben’s Case (6 C. Cls. R., p. 230) that such papers are not of themselves legal evidence, and standing alone establish nothing. If it were established that the husband did sell to the Confederate States these eighty-eight bales, the question would then arise as to his authority to thus dispose of the claimant’s undivided interest.

The judgment of the court is that the claimant recover of the defendants the net proceeds in the Treasury of forty-four bales of cotton captured in Mississippi, being $76.19 per bale, amounting in the aggregate to $3,352.36.

Subsequently, upon motion for a new trial, the following decision was rendered:

Nott, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

It was not understood by the court at the trial of this case that the claimant’s counsel conceded the fact of a sale by the husband to the Confederate States, and stood upon the unauthorized character of the sale so far as it related to the separate property of his wife. This error of fact would ordinarily entitle the defendants to a new trial. But we understand that there is no other fact in the case to be presented, and we are satisfied, after an examination of the law of Mississippi, that the result would not be affected if the motion were granted. The legislature of Mississippi have done everything possible to guard the separate property of the wife. In addition to the provisions of law before cited, the code of Mississippi provides that the property of the wife cannot be “ sold ” or “ transferred ” by the husband unless the wife join in the conveyance and acknowledge the same separate and apart from her husband. (Code, p. 335.)

No such conveyance was made in this ease; and this court cannot sanction an evasion of the law by allowing the husband to mingle the wife’s property with his own and then dispose of it as property belonging exclusively to himself.

The motion for a new trial .upon this ground is denied.