Case ID: ohio-app_19/html/0016-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Matjck, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Attorneys Service Co. v. Monk.
    
      Husband and wife — Liability for necessaries furnished wife— Goods purchased by and charged to wife.
    
    A husband is not liable for necessaries furnished his wife if the merchant furnishing them charged them to the wife and was unaware that she had a husband.
    Husband and Wife, 30 C. J. §§ 115, 140.
    (Decided March 23, 1925.)
    Error: iCourt of Appeals for Scioto county.
    
      Messrs. McLaughlin & Staker, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Mr. Luther Thompson, for defendant in error.
   Matjck, P. J.

Some support is found for the doctrine that the marriage relation, of itself, creates an unconditional liability on the part of the husband for the wife’s necessaries, the latest and most interesting authority on this point perhaps being Fisher v. Drew, 247 Mass., 178, 141 N. E., 875, 30 A. L. R., 798. Edminston v. Smith, 13 Idaho, 645, 92 Pac., 842, is to like effect. In McKee v. Popular Dry Goods Co., 240 S. W., 567, the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, in a case very much like that at bar, holds the husband liable, but a later case in the same state adopts the contrary view. Colonnia v. Kruger, 246 S. W., 707. The great weight of authority, however, is that under the circumstances named, and even under circumstances much more favorable to the creditor, no liability arises against the husband. The authorities are collected and discussed in a note to Brown v. Durepo, 27 A. L. R., 554, and to a lesser extent in 98 Am. St. Rep., 639, and in the main they support the propositions of law laid down in 13 Ruling Case Law, 1200, Section 233, to the following effect:

“Though there are decisions to the contrary, the better view seems to be that in order to render a husband liable for necessaries furnished his wife they must have been furnished on his credit.”

There are other questions in this case that would render the reversal of the judgment impossible. The liability of the husband does not by law extend to all purchases of the wife indiscriminately. To prove arcase against him for purchases not expressly authorized it must be shown that the goods bought were necessaries, that is, reasonably necessary for people of their means. Some other difficulties arise in the instant case, but we are content to follow the current of authority and hold the husband not liable for debts contracted upon the sole responsibility of his wife.

Judgment affirmed.

Sayre and Middleton, JJ., concur.