Court Opinion

ID: 9808252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:31:25.855866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:10:25.880571
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
dissenting: The Code, Section 178, provides that a married woman can sue and be sued. This contemplates that a valid judgment can be rendered against her. The Code; Section 424(4), provides that judgment may be given against a married woman “in the same manner as against other persons.” The Code, Section 443, provides that an execution can issue against a married woman and be levied upon her individual property. This, of course, could not he done unless a valid judgment against her could be obtained. The Constitution, Article S, Sdction 6, provides that the property of a married woman “shall be and remain the sole and separate estate and property of such female.” This gives point to the above provisions allowing her to he sued and judgment' to be rendered against her as “against other persons” and that execution shall issue against her property.
Pippen v. Wesson, 74 N. C., 437, recognized that the contract of a married woman was binding on "her if it was made for her benefit. In the present case the plaintiff testified that ‘ ‘he was employed by both the defendants to attend to certain legal business for the/eme defendant; that in pursuance of such employment he did so; that the business transacted in consequence of said employment was for the -benefit of the separate estate of the feme defendant and that the fees charged for his services were reasonable and just.” The feme defendant did not plead her coverture before the justice and was refused permission to plead it on appeal. The court, *717however, charged that in no aspect of the evidence could a verdict be rendered against the feme defendant.
This was in substance holding that, since it appeared from the summons that the feme defendant was a married woman (her husband being a co-defendant as required), the law from that fact itself rendered her exempt from judgment, even for services rendered for the benefit of her estate and at the request of her husband and herself. If so, why is it expressly provided that she can be sued, that judgment can go against her and that execution can issue against her separate property? There is not a shred of a statute to sustain such ‘ ‘privilege of sanctuary.” That judgments can be rendered against married women and are as binding as against any one sui juris has been the ruling of this court as well as the express letter of the statute law. Green v. Branton, 16 N. C., 504; Vick v. Pope, 81 N. C., 22; Grantham v. Kennedy, 91 N. C., 148; Neville v. Pope, 95 N. C., 346. The services rendered the married woman here were as much a “necessary” as that for which the wife was held liable to judgment in Bazemore v. Mountain, 121 N. C., 59, and the participation of the husband with the wife in the contract and that it was for the benefit of her estate was shown. The written consent is not required when he is present participating and acting as agent for his wife, for he could not give a written power of attorney to himself.
In practice it will be found to work a serious hardship upon married women if they cannot be held liable for services rendered or money loaned for the benefit of themselves or their separate estate, unless a special charge or privy examination is shown. No statute requires this, and no decision prior to Flaum v. Wallace, intimated it. The Code, Section 1826, .'requires nothing in *718any case beyond the “written consent of the husband.” As no vested rights can accrue under the artificial rule invalidating contracts for the benefit of married women, which has grown up under the last named decision, it is the better plan to return at once to the plain statute as [the law-making power has written it.