Case Name: Josephine Allen v. W. R. Baker
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1873
Citations: 39 Tex. 220
Docket Number: 
Parties: Josephine Allen v. W. R. Baker.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 39
Pages: 220–227

Head Matter:
Josephine Allen v. W. R. Baker.
d..' Though a receipt given by the wife for money due the husband was not binding on the husband when the payment was made in Confederate money without his consent or authority, yet where the hasband died after such a payment, and the wife who had given the receipt became his executrix and sole heir, she is bound by her receipt in the absence of fraud, covin, misrepresentation, or undue influence.
3. One who has voluntarily executed a contract by paying or receiving ¡Confederate money in satisfaction of a demand will not be relieved, ■but left where his own action has placed him.
Appeal from Harris. Tried below before the Hon. ■James Masterson.
This suit was instituted by Mrs. Josephine Allen as executrix of the estate of her late husband, Ebenezer Allen, ■deceased, to recover $7500, with eight per cent, interest 'per annum from the thirtieth of June, 1864, upon the following obligation:
“Agreement between Wm. B. Baker and Ebenezer Allen, entered into this ninth day of July, A. D. 1859, ■witnesseth: Whereas, on the thirtieth day of June, A. I). 1859, the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company issued to Ebenezer Allen three hundred shares of its stock, which the said Allen now holds; and whereas, the .said Allen, for the consideration hereinafter named, has .transferred to the said Baker, by indorsement on the certificate of shares, being Ho. 575, the said three hundred .shares of stock to the said Baker: How, it is agreed and understood between the parties hereto that of the said three hundred shares one hundred and. fifty shares are transferred to and held by said Baker in trust for the said Allen, the trust being as follows: Whereas, an association or joint stock company was formed on the thirtieth of June past, by articles of association, between said Baker, J. W. McDade, Wm. M. Rice, P. Bremond, and others, ten in number, for the purpose of purchasing and owning the stock of the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company, to the amount of three thousand shares, with-the provision to acquire all the stock issued over and above that amount—the stock so acquired to be managed and administered for the common benefit of the associates, in accordance with the provisions of said articles, each of said associates to have or represent three hundred shares: It is understood that the interest of said Allen in said association is one-twentieth, and that said Baker is to hold; the one hundred and fifty shares in trust for said Aliens and the remaining one hundred and fifty shares are sold and assigned to said Baker as his own property, in consideration of which he agrees to pay said Allen the sum . of seven thousand five hundred dollars on the 30th of June, A. D. 1864. The said Allen to have the benefit of the provisions in said articles contained, relating to the subscription of $350,000 made on the 27th and 28th of April, A. D. 1858, the subscription of Harvey Baldwin*, of $50,000 having been canceled.
“Witness our hands in duplicate.
(Signed) “W. B, Baker,
“Eben’R. Allen."
Baker in his answer set up four several payments in*, full discharge, and also a receipt subsequently taken, in. which Mrs. Allen acknowledged, in her capacity of executrix, that she had before received $7500 in full discharge of the debt against the estate.
Mrs. Allen craved oyer of this instrument, which being - refused, she demurred to so much of Baker’s answer: and filed an amended petition by way'of replication,, in* which she stated under oath that she had no recollection. of ever having given such a receipt; that she executed a receipt for certificates for certain railroad stock, which she did not read at the time, nor did the defendant read it to her, as she had full confidence in Baker, not supposing that he would ask her to sign anything wrong; that it was a deception practiced on her, and that it was not her act and deed; that the several payments set up by Baker were made in Confederate money at a time when it was dangerous to refuse it, her husband being a Union man and a fugitive from the State; that Baker took advantage of her situation and forced the Confederate money upon her against her will, and that the same was illegal and wholly worthless.
Baker filed an amended answer, in which he set up that Mrs. Allen was the sole devisee under the will, that she had received the benefit of the payments, and would be solely benefited by a recovery, and insisted on the binding efficacy of the payments set up in his original answer ; that she had received a large amount of property belonging to the estate ; and also filed exceptions to her special plea of non est factum.
The court overruled Mrs. Allen’s exceptions to Baker’s plea, and sustained his exceptions to her plea of non est factum, to both of which rulings she excepted.
The additional facts connected with the trial are stated in the opinion delivered on a rehearing of the cause.
Verdict and judgment for Baker.
McConaughey & Fauntleroy, for appellant,
argued that the payment to Mrs. Allen, made without special authority in her to receive Confederate paper, was no legal payment, and that her receipt given in her fiduciary character of executrix could not bind the estate, citing Kleburg v. Bends, 31 Texas, 611; 31 Texas, 446, 557; Prigeon v. Smith, 30 Texas, 171.
Geo. Goldthwaite & E. P. Turner, for appellee.—
'Counsel in support of the position, that a voluntary reception of Confederate money in full payment of an obligation by the payee of said obligation is. a good payment, cited Vanderhœven v. Nette, 32 Texas, 183; Burleson v. Cleveland, 32 Texas, 397; Donley v. Tindal, 32 Texas, 43; Richie v. Sweet, 32 Texas, 333; Goodman v. McGehee, 31 Texas, 253; Smith v. Smith, 30 Texas, 754; Robinson v. International Life Assurance Society of London, 42 New York Reps., 54; Cross v. Sells, 1 Heiskel.
Appellee’s counsel also argued that the case of Ransom v. Alexander had no application to this case.
He also insisted that the appellant was estopped from •denying her authority to receive Confederate money, if she would now gain by repudiating her agency, and cited Herman on Estoppels, 463.
Also, that a sole devisee under a will, though suing as executrix, who has accepted the same, and received assets of her testator’s estate, as such sole devisee, more than sufficient to pay off her testator’s indebtedness, stands in the position of her testator, and as such is estopped to deny the validity of her acts, and to plead want of authority, when she had voluntarily received Confederate money in payment of an obligation due her testator.

Opinion:
Walker, J.
There has not been before this court a •case precisely like the one at bar.
Mrs. Allen, first as the agent of her husband, Ebenezer Allen, and afterwards as the executrix of his will, re•ceived certain sums of money before the same became due, from the appellee. Ebenezer Allen sold to Baker one hundred and fifty shares of the capital stock in the Houston and ¿Texas Central Railway Company under a contract dated July 9, 1859. Payment was to be made for the stock on the thirtieth of June, 1864.
The war coming on, Allen went into the service of the Confederacy, leaving his wife and child in Texas. Owing, perhaps, to the necessities of Mrs. Allen, she accepted the payments, under authority from her husband, in advance of maturity. In 1863 Allen died, leaving his entire property to his wife, and appointing her the executrix of his will. Mrs. Allen appears to have taken a considerable estate by the devise over and above what was necessary to pay debts.
The defendant payed ofi his indebtedness in Confederate money. The receipt of Confederate money by Mrs. Allen as the agent of her husband, without an express authority to receive Confederate money, would not have discharged the debt, nor would her receipt as executrix of her husband's 'will have discharged the debt if there were other heirs, legatees or creditors to complain; but Mrs. Allen is sole legatee under her husband's will, and a handsome estate remains to her, after the payment of debts; and in the absence of fraud, covin, misrepresentation or undue influence, she must be bound by her contracts ; and though, in this case, the contract was executed in Confederate money, it is nevertheless an executed contract, against which this court can grant no relief.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
Aeeirmed.
M. A. Long, for appellant, filed an able argument for rehearing, which being obtained, he submitted a brief contesting the authority and application of the case relied upon and reported in 32 Texas, 333, of Richie v. Sweet. "That decision was a mere dictum, the question of Confederate money not necessarily» arising. The report itself shows that Sweet collected the note sued on in Confederate money when that currency was of par value, and like coin could be used to buy cotton at the current rate of nine cents per pound." The note having thus been once fully paid, should not have been again demanded. The second demand was unjust and absurd. There was therefore no occasion for the court to have uttered the dictum about an "illegal executed contract," or to speculate about the effect of substituting an illegal contract for a legal one, etc.
It was also contended that the case of Richie v. Sweet was not a decision of the Supreme Court of Texas, but only by a provisional military tribunal of final resort, appointed by the General of the United States Army commanding the department of Western Texas. The so-called judges, so appointed, held their offices during the pleasure of the officer commanding, and not for the term designated by the Constitution of this State. In no proper sense could such a temporary military tribunal be respected as the Supreme Court of Texas, however learned and able its members. ,