Case Name: In the case of Sarah A. Nowell, a feme-covert
Court: Constitutional Court of South Carolina
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1823-05
Citations: 2 McCord 453
Docket Number: 
Parties: In the case of Sarah A. Nowell, a feme-covert.
Judges: Justices Huger, Johnson and Richardson, concurred.-
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 13
Pages: 453–454

Head Matter:
In the case of Sarah A. Nowell, a feme-covert.
The will of a feme covert bequeathing her choses in action to her hus» band, is void, though made with his assent.
Charleston district, January Term, 1833. — Tried before Mr. Justice Gantt.
THIS was the case of an appeal from the Ordinary, on a paper offered before him for probate, as the will of a feme-covert. William Wheeler, the father of Sarah Jinn Nowell, made his last will and testament, in which he gave to his daughter, a minor, and unmarried, certain property, real and personal, to and for her own sole and separate use, without being subject to the debts, contracts, or engagements of any husband whom she might have.— Soon after her father’s death, she married John L. Now-ell. No marriage settlement was ever made, nor any power reserved to her to make a will. Some time however, before her death, she executed a paper, purporting to be a will, in which she gives all the personal estate to her husband, the said John L. Nowell, with his consent and advice, and appointing him her executor. She died before she came of age, leaving only her brother, William Wheeler, her heir at law. The property under her father’s will, to which she was entitled, never was reduced into her own or her husband’s possession* but was at the time of her death, and át the time of the trial, undivided jn the hands of her father’s executor.
When this paper was offered by the husband to the ordinary for probate, it was opposed by her brother, and the ordinary decided against the paper, and refused probate.
On this, an appeal was made from the ordinary to the Circuit Court, and the Circuit Court reversed Ihe decision of the ordinary, and directed that the paper should be admitted by the ordinary to probate From this decision, an appeal was now made on the following grounds :
1st. That by the law'of South-Carolina, a feme-covert cannot, without a power specially reserved to her before marriage, make a will of her separate estate, without her husband’s consent, and against him.
2nd. That a feme-covert cannot dispose of her chosen in action, by will.
3d. That a feme-covert under age, can in no case make a will.
King, for the motion.
Kennedy Sf Petigru, Att’y Gen. contra.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Nott
delivered the opinion of the court:
The court do not perceive that the principle involved in this ease is at all distinguishable from that decided in the case of Hood & Archer, (1 McCord, 225.) This, therefore, must be governed by that case, and the motion to reverse the decision in the court below must prevail.
Justices Huger, Johnson and Richardson, concurred.-