Court Opinion

ID: 9811248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:14:13.777312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:47.374867
License: Public Domain

BeowN, J.,
dissenting: It must be admitted that the contract, for a breach of which the plaintiff seeks damage, acts directly upon the feme defendant’s land, and not incidentally. By it she contracts to convey to plaintiff certain lands owned by her, and it could be specifically enforced had her privy examination been taken. If any legal question has ever been settled by repeated decisions of this Court it is that the deed or contract of a married woman charging her real estate in this State is a nullity unless her husband joins and her privy examination is taken. Scott v. Battle, 85 N. C., 184; Farthing v. Shields, 106 N. C., *416289; Ball v. Paquin, 140 N. C., 83; Bank v. Benbow, 150 N. C., 781; Council v. Pridgen, 153 N. C., 443.
The assent of the husband is a constitutional requirement. The necessity for the privy examination is not only required by Rev., 952, as to all her lands, and by the Constitution as to the homestead, but it is made a necessary requisite by the so-called Martin act, itself. So carefully has this Court guarded this protection to married women that in Smith v. Bruton, 137 N. C., 79, it is held that a married woman cannot bind herself by agreeing to arbitrate the question of title- to land owned by her. It might result in conveying- away her land by an award of arbitrators without the necessary assent of her husband and privy examination.
I am unable to comprehend how this married woman can be mulcted in damages for a breach of a contract which has been repeatedly held to be an absolute nullity, as much so as if it had never been reduced to writing. How can she be civilly liable on a contract which in law has never had any existence ?
In S. v. Robinson, 143 N. C., 622, Mr. Justice Walker says: “The defendant'cannot be criminally liable under Rev.,'sec.' 3367, unless the contract with the' prosecutor by which she rented and agreed to cultivate the land was valid and binding upon her. This was decided in S. v. Howard, 88 N. C., 650, as to an infant, whose contracts are merely voidable, and the principle-is applicable with greater force to a married woman, whose contracts, as a general rule, are void.” In Howards' case, Justice Ashe, for the Court, says: “The case then results in this, that the State seeks by this indictment to hold the defendant amenable to the criminal law for the violation of a void contract. Vith all due respect to the opinion of those who entertain such a proposition, we must say that it seems to us preposterous.” See,' also, Bishop on Statutory Crimes, sec. 131; S. v. Plaisted, 43 N. H., 413; Jones v. State, 31 Texas C. R. Appeals, 252; 2d McLean’s C. R. Law, see. 846.
I say, with all deference, that it is, to my mind, a solecism to hold that an action for damages may be maintained for a breach of a contract that is so utterly null and void that a court cannot compel the defendant to specifically perform it. It is suggested that if a married woman borrow money and give her individual note for it, judgment may be obtained against her if she fails to pay it, and her lands sold under execution, and thus she will use them, without her husband’s consent, and without her privy examination.
That is now undoubtedly true, because the execution of the note constitutes a valid contract, and privy examination and consent of husband are not prerequisite to its validity. Consequently, its performance may be enforced by legal process. But in this case the attempt is being made to give force and vitality to a contract that has never had legal existence. *417How can tbe Court give any judgment against this defendant for breach of a contract which she has never executed according to the law of the land?
Me. Justice WaleeR concurs in this opinion.