Case Name: STEER, for the use of FARRELL, against STEER and another
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1826-09-19
Citations: 14 Serg. & Rawle 379
Docket Number: 
Parties: STEER, for the use of FARRELL, against STEER and another.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Sergeant & Rawle)
Volume: 14
Pages: 379–380

Head Matter:
[Pittsburg,
September 19, 1826.]
STEER, for the use of FARRELL, against STEER and another.
IN ERROR.
Coverture may be pleaded in abatement or in bar, according to circumstances. In añ action of debt on a bond, executed by the defendants directly to the plaintiff, daring her coverture with one of them, coverture is a plea in bar.
On a writ of error to the Court of Common Pleas of Armstrong county, it appeared that an action of debt was brought in the court below, to September Term, 1821, by Martha Steer, the plaintiff in error, for the use of Horatio Farrell, on a bond executed by Bernard Steer, her husband, and Isaac Townsend, the defendants in error. After the defendants had appeared by attornéy, a declaration had been filed, a rule to take depositions, and several rules to plead entered, the defendants, on the 17th of September, 1823, filed, together with other pleas, a plea of the coverture of the plaintiff with Bernard Steer, one of the defendants. The plaintiff demurred to the plea of coverture, and the defendants joined in demurrer. The court below gave judgment for the defendants.
Alexander, for the plaintiff in error,
contended that the plea of coverture was not a plea in bar; and that after three continuances, it could not be received as a plea in abatement. He cited and relied upon, 1 Com. Big. Abatement, p. 12. 1 Chitty PI. 436, 437, 438, (margin.) Ruble’s Executors v. Boileau, 10 Serg. & Razóle, 20S.
Stannard, contra,
said, the question is, whether a married woman can support an action against her husband ? The plea goes, not to show that this action cannot be maintained, but that the plaintiff can never recover, and is therefore a plea in bar. 1 Chitty PI. 434, (margin.) Coverture is generally a plea in abatement, 1 Chitty PI. 462, (margin.) But, under some circumstances, it may" be pleaded in bar. Id. 438, (margin.)

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Gibson, J.
Coverture may be pleaded in abatement or in bar, according to circumstances. Agreements between a man and a woman, without the intervention of trustees, are extinguished by a subsequént marriage, if they are not to be executed till after the coverture, in which case they survive. But nothing is better established, than that during the coverture, neither can grant to the other any estate or interest, nor enter into any covenant or contract directly with the other. This depends on the intimate union of person whieh arises from the contract of marriage, and which is so perfect that they are looked upon as one. For this reason, the husband's contract with his wife, is, in contemplation of law, made with himself, and is, for that reason, absolutely a non entity. Now, here the defendants, during the coverture of the plaintiff with one of themselves, executed , the bond in question directly to the wife; and she insists that the coverture is pleadable to an action on it, only in abatement. But the defence is not merely the disability in respect of maintaining an action in her own name, but the total absence of every thing like responsibility or a cause of action. This is altogether unlike an action on a bond to the wife from a third person, in which there is a valid cause of action, and the non-joinder of the husband is therefore to be pleaded in abatement.- Here the defence goes to the toot of the demand; and, as it is impossible to give the party a better writ, it can be pleaded only in bar. For these reasons, we are of opinion the demurrer was properly overruled.
Judgment affirmed.