Court Opinion

ID: 9749526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:49:20.075242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:51.055375
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Robebts:
The majority relies on “a long line of cases” to reach its result. That line ends in 1895, and I believe that its reasoning was questionable in the 19th Century and untenable today.
The statute which controls this case is the Act of April 11, 1848, P. L. 536, §8, 48 P.S. §116, which states that “judgment shall not be rendered against the wife, in such joint action, unless it shall have been proved that the debt sued for in such action, was contracted by the wife, or incurred for articles necessary for the support of the family of said husband or wife.” (Emphasis added.) Although the statute explicitly provides for a judgment against the wife if the debt was contracted by her or if it was incurred for necessities, the Court in Murray v. Keyes, 35 Pa. 384 *477(1860), the most ancient of the legal dinosaurs paraded forth by the majority, concluded that “or” must be read as “and”, and required that the debt be contracted for in all events.
I believe that we should be extremely cautious in ever reading “or” to mean “and”, cf. Statutory Construction Act, Act of May 28, 1937, P. L. 1019, §51, 46 P.S. §551, and I see no reason for doing it in this case. Murray v. Keyes reached its result because of an attempt by the Court to reconcile §8 of the Act of 1848, with §6, 48 P.S. §64, which deals with the wife’s separate property. As appellant points out, Murray v. Keyes was a case which indeed dealt with the wife’s separate property; since the case before us deals with property which came to the widow by operation of law, the reasoning of Murray v. Keyes, whether valid or not, is completely inapplicable.
More generally, the policy which the Court in Murray thought it was protecting was clearly dissolved by the Married Women’s Act, Act of July 15, 1957, P. L. 969, §1, 48 P.S. §32.1, which put married women’s contractual rights and powers on the same footing as that of married men. Although the Legislature has not spoken to the problem created by the Murray case, I do not find that to be controlling. In my view, it is fallacious to read any meaning at all into that non-action, which may have resulted from lack of awareness or lack of interest. Furthermore, the Married Women’s Act seems to at least impliedly indicate a legislative rejection of Murray.
I dissent and would reverse the order of the court below.