Case ID: us-ct-cl_7/html/0496-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Nott, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William H. Green v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      A married woman resident in South Carolina brings a suit under tlie Abandoned or captured property act to recover the proceeds of cotton captured in that State. After the period for bringing such actions has lapsed, she joins her husbamd as co-claimant, and files an amended petition. Ike amended petition, like the first, alleges that she was “tbe owner and in jjossession” of the cotton which was “purchased wick money received from ker mother,” and stored “ on the premises of your petitioners.”
    I. By the law of South Carolina, chattels acquired by the wife after marriage vest instantly in the husband. Therefore, in a suit brought under the Abandoned or captwed property act, where the parties are residents of South . Carolina, and the property was captured there, the husband may recover, although the petition alleges that the wife was “the owner and in possession,” and that the cotton was purchased with money received from her mother.
    
      II. The object of the provision in the Abandoned or captured properly act, which. limits the bringing of actions to within two years after the rebellion, was to bring all claims upon the fund before the court within a fixed and definite period. And it does not conflict with the true intent of the statute, where a suit has been improperly brought in the name of the wife, while the property at the time of capture was in the husband, to allow the husband to bo substituted as claimant after the expiration of the two years prescribed by the statute.
    
      Messrs. Cooley and Clarice for the claimant:
    This action was commenced originally by Estelle G. P. Green.
    Subsequently, by an order of this court, William H. Green, the husband of Estelle, was' made a party claimant, and the suit is now prosecuted in the joint names of husband and wife, who are residents of Charleston.
    The cotton was purchased in one lot of N. II. Guyton, and was paid for by Mrs. Greene, with her own money.
    The evidence clearly establishes that Mrs. Greene and her mother were loyal Union women, and were active in that loyalty, not only aiding to relieve the sufferings of our Union prisoners, but helping to conceal those who escaped from the hands of the rebels. It also shows that the husband, William EL Greene, was a man who constantly adhered to the United States, and that ■when conscripted into the rebel service he evaded active duty, and did not leave Charleston when the rebels evacuated that city, as did most of the rebel soldiery and people, but remained, and voluntarily submitted himself to the Federal military authority.
    William H. Greene, shortly after the capture of Charleston, demonstrated that he was sincere in his adherence to the cause of the Union by promptly talcing the amnesty oath prescribed by President Lincoln, in his proclamation dated the 8th of December, 1863.
    I do hereby certify that on the 4th day of March, 1865, at Charleston, South Carolina, the oath prescribed by the President of the United States in his proclamation of December 8, 1863, was duly taken, subscribed, and made matter of record by William TT. Greene, of Charleston, South Carolina.
    MICRON JARVIS,
    
      First .Lieutenant, One hundred and ticenty-seventh
    
    
      New Tori: Volunteers, Assistant Provost Marshal.
    
    
      
      Mr. Alexander Johnston for the defendants.
   Nott, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The suit was brought by a married woman to recover the proceeds of captured property alleged to have been hers in her own right. After the period for bringing such actions had elapsed, she joined her husband as co-claimant, and filed an amended petition. The defendants plead the limitation of the statute.

The amended petition alleges, like the first, that the wife u toas the owner and in possession of forty-seven bales of sea-island cotton, purchased with money received from her mother, stored in the city of Charleston, on the premises of your petitioners and it seeks to recover the proceeds in the name and right of the wife. The evidence is in accordance with the averment, and shows that the wife purchased the cotton in her own name, with funds derived from the estate of her mother, and believed to be her separate property.

The law of South Carolina, at the time of the seizure of this property, was the common law ; and it had been declared by the case of Myers v. Griffts, (11 Rich. R., p. 560,) that chattels acquired by the wife after marriage vest instantly in the bus-band. Therefore, the captured cotton was the property of the husband; he was the owner of it, and he only can recover the proceeds.

But he, as has been said, was not brought into the case until the period had elapsed to which the bringing of such suits is limited by the act.

Nevertheless, we think that he should recover. The object of the statute was to bring all claims upon the fund before the court within a fixed and definite period. In the Cowan Infant’s Case (5 O. Cls. R., p. IOC,) we' held that, where suit had been brought by the guardian of the infant, instead of the administrator of the estate, the new representative might be joined as a party. In the recent case of Payan, (ante, p. —,) we held that the assignor of the property might bo substituted as claimant for the assignee, and the suit proceed in the name of the assignor to the use of the assignee. In the English case of Brown v. Fullerton, (13 Mees. & Wels., p. 556,) the Court of Exchequer allowed the writ and all subsequent proceedings to be amended by adding the name of the official assignee in bankruptcy as another plaintiff; because “ it appeared that, if the amendment were not made, the statute of limitations ivoiild he ■ a har to the recovery of the debt for which the action was brought.’7 In another English case, Carne v. Malins, (6 L. & Eq., 568,) the same court, and for the same reason, allowed the plaintiffs ■to amend the writ by adding as- plaintiffs the names of eight new parties, these new parties being in fact copartners in trade with those in whose name the suit originally stood. These English cases fully sustain the previous action of this court in -allowing the amendment, and saving a meritorious cause of action. It is hardly necessary to add that the common law regards the husband as the protector, guardian, and representative of the wife, and that he is in no sense an adverse claimant coming in to defeat instead of secure her rights and equities.

The judgment of the court is that the claimant, William II. Greene, recover the proceeds, in the Treasury, of forty-seven bales of sea-island cotton, captured at Charleston, at the rate ■of $2;>i,01 per bale, amounting in the aggregate to $10,833.67.