Court Opinion

ID: 9831980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:31:11.124379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:40.454253
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
There is no conflict whatever between the decision in this case and the decision in Whitney Hardware Co. v. McMahan, 111 Tex. 242, 231 S. W. 694; In that case it held, so plainly “that he who runs may read,” that a married woman must-respond in damages for a tort committed by her personally, in connection with her separate estate. The ground of her liability was staged to be her power and authority to- contract as to her separate property. The court held:
“The power granted by the statute to Mrs. McMahon to manage and control the store building belonging to her separate estate, and the rents to be derived therefrom, carried with it the incidental and collateral power to make a contract with her tenant to repair the store building and to employ others to make needed repairs. She would be liable for the breach of her contract and for the ptoximate results of her negligence on the part of those employed by her, without protection from her coverture.’\
That decision was made in answer to a certified question in regard to the liability of a married woman for damages arising from negligently causing a roof to be removed from a building, her separate property, whereby a rain penetrated the inside of the store and damaged goods, belonging to her tenant. The liability of the husband was not in question, and, if it were, the tort of the wife grew out of a contract she had the powter to make and was committed in an attempt to perform the contract. Nothing about the husband being liable for the torts of the wife connected with and growing out of an illegal and invalid contract of the wife was involved in the answer to the question, and any expressions on such a case, if there were any, were purely obiter dictum.
In this case the wife was not contracting in regard to her separate property, but she endeavored to make a contract founded on forgery and perjury and to bind her husband thereby. ( The, difference between the two cases is apparent. The w|ife was not bound' on the contract and the husband was not bound, and the commissioner,- John M. Scott, will not be permitted to recover on a tort committed by the wife, being a part and parcel of the invalid contract, and indirectly enforce that illegal contract. If any Texas decision has so held, we have failed to discover it, and would not be controlled by such decision if it existed. ,
The ruling of this court in Sandoval v. Eagle Pass Lumber Company, 248 S. W. 132, is directly in point, and we adhere to the statement therein:
“But while it is true that the person who is capacitated to contract may commit a tort in connection therewith, the person incapable of making the contract cannot be bound on a tort dependent on the contract. If a married *1016woman could be beld liable for a tort growing out of, and dependent on, a contract which she could not lawfully make, it would amount to making her liable on the illegal contract, and what could not be reached directly would be accomplished indirectly.”
This seems to be self-evident, and we have seen no authority that contravenes it. The rule is supported by all respectable American authority. Ruling Case Law, Husband & Wife, vol. 13, pp. 1225-1227; Prentiss v. Paisley, 25 Fla. 927, 7 So. 56, 7 L. R. A. 640; Graham v. Tucker, 56 Fla. 307, 47 So. 563, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 531, 131 Am. St. Rep. 124; Ferguson v. Neilson, 17 R. I. 81, 20 A. 229, 9 L. R. A. 155, 33 Am. St. Rep. 855; Rowley v. Shepardson, 83 Vt. 167, 74 A. 1002, 138 Am. St. Rep. 1078. In clear terms Ruling Case Law states the rule:
“A married woman is not liable for her torts growing out of or connected with a contract which she undertook to make, unless she has capacity to bind herself by contract.”
The text is supported by ample authority.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.