Case Name: Neal vs. Sawyer et al.
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1879-02
Citations: 62 Ga. 352
Docket Number: 
Parties: Neal vs. Sawyer et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 62
Pages: 352–354

Head Matter:
Neal vs. Sawyer et al.
A wife is not the head of the family. She cannot take a homestead iru her separate property for the benefit of herself, two minor children by a former husband, and one-minor child by the present husband, the present husband having secured the whole of his own property as exempt.
Husband and wife. Homestead. Before Judge Hood.. Terrell Superior Court. November Adjourned Term, 1878-
Reported in the decision.
Dupont Guerry ; Jas. G. Parks, for plaintiff in error..
T. H. Pickett, by brief; D. A. Vason, for defendants,
cited Code, §§2010, 5135, 1803, 2018, 1785 ; 26 Ga., 380.

Opinion:
Warner, Chief Justice.
This was a claim case which was submitted to the court below for decision on an agreed statement of facts, without the intervention of a jury. The court decided that the property was not subject to the fi. fa. levied thereon. Whereupon the plaintiff in fi. fa. excepted.
It appears from the record, that the property was levied on as the property of Mrs. R. A. Sawyer, to satisfy a judgment obtained against her, and that she claimed it as a homestead exemption for herself and two minor children by Fletcher, her former husband, and one minor child by Sawyer, her present husband ; that the claimant was in possession of the property claimed at the time of the levy, the three minor children living with her, but what were their respective ages does not appear; that after her inter-marriage with Sawyer, her present husband, he obtained a homestead exemption of all his individual property under the provisions of the 2010th section of tbe Code; that after-wards, on the 18th of December, 1876, the claimant applied for and obtained her homestead exemption in the property levied on, the same being her separate property in possession before her marriage with Sawyer, and the question is whether upon the foregoing statement of facts the property was subject to the fi. fa. levied thereon. In our judgment, it was subject. The husband is recognized by law as the head of the family. If a wife having children by a former as well as by a pi'esent husband can be said to be the head of any family, most certainly it is not the head of a mixed family consisting of herself and her minor children by both husbands. She is a member of her living husband's family, and so are the children which she bears to him. In this case the husband had secured all his own property as exempt, and in the benefits of that exemption she and her child by him were entitled and are still entitled to share. The same household cannot have two separate homesteads or exemptions, one secured by the husband in his property, and the other by the wife in hers.
Let the judgment of the court below be reversed.