Court Opinion

ID: 9418190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:12:13.537163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:57.012550
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
with whom concur Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Hughes,
dissenting.
This is an action by a wife against her husband to recover damages for assault and battery. The declaration *620contabas seven counts. The first,, second and third charge assault by the husband upon the wife on three several days. The remaining counts charge assaults by him upon her on different days named — she being at the time pregnant, as the husband then well knew.
The defendant filed two pleas — the first that he was not guilty, the second that, at the time of the causes of action mentioned, the plaintiff and defendant were husband and wife and living together as such.
The plaintiff demurred to the second plea, and the demurrer was overruled. She stood by the demurrer, and the action was dismissed.
The action is based upon §§ llfil and 1155 of the Code of the District, which are as follows:
“ Sec. 1151.'. All the property, real, personal, and mixed, belonging to a woman at the time of her marriage, and all such property which she may acquire or receive after her marriage from any person whomsoever, by purchase, gift, grant, devise, bequest, descent, in the course of distribution, by her own skill, labor, or. personal exertions, ór as proceeds of a judgment at law or decree, in equity, or in any other manner, shall be her own property as absolutely as if she were unmarried, and shall be protected from the debts of the husband and shall not in any way be liable for the payment thereof: Provided, That no acquisition of. property passing to the wife, from the husband after coverture shall be valid if the same has been made or granted to her in prejudice of the rights of his subsisting creditors.
“Sec. 1155. Married women shall have power to engage in any business, and to contract, whether engaged in business or not, and to sue separately upon their contracts, and also to sue separately for the recovery, security or protection of their property, and for torts committed against them, as fully and freely as if they were unmarried; •contracts may also be made with them, and they may *621also be sued separately upon their contracts, whether made before or during marriage, and for wrongs independent of contract committed by them before or during their marriage, as fully as if they were unmarried, and upon judgments recovered against them execution may be issued as if they were unmarried; nor shall any husband be liable upon any contract made by his wife in her own name and upon her own responsibility, nor for any tort committed separately by her out of his presence without his participation or sanction: Provided, That no married woman shall have power to make any contract as surety or as guarantor, or as accommodation drawer, acceptor, maker or indorser.”
The court below held that these provisions did not authorize an action for tort committed by the husband against the wife.
In my opinion these statutory provisions, properly construed, embrace such a case as the present one. If the words used by Congress lead to such a result, and if, as suggested, that result be undesirable on grounds of public policy, it is not within the functions of the court to ward off the dangers feared or the evils threatened simply by a judicial construction that will defeat the plainly-expressed will of the legislative department. With the.mere policy, expediency or justice of legislation the courts, in our system of government, have no rightful concern. Their duty is only to declare what the law is, not what, in .their judgment, it ought to. be — leaving the responsibility for legislation where it exclusively belongs, that is, with the legislative department, so long as it keep's within constitutional limits. Now, there is .not here, as I' think, any room whatever for mere construction — so explicit are the words of Congress. Let us follow the clauses of the statute in their order. The statute enables the married woman to take, as her own, property of any kind, no matter how acquired by. her, as well- as the avails of *622her skill, labor or personal, exertions, “as absolutely as if she were unmarried.” It then confers upon married women the power to engage in any business, no mátter what, and to enter into contracts, whether engaged in' business or not, and to sue separately upon those contracts.. If the statute stopped here, there would be ground for holding that it did not authorize this suit. But the statute goes much farther. It proceeds to authorize married women “also” to sue separately for the recovery, security or protection of their property; still more, they may sue, separately, “for torts committed against- them, as fully and freely as if they were unmarried." No discrimination is made, in either case, between the persons charged with committing the tort. No exception is made in reference to the husband, if he- happens to bé the party charged with transgressing the rights conferred upon the wife by the statute. In other words, Congress, by these statutory provisions, destroys the unity of the marriagé association as it had previously existed: It. makes a radical change in the relations of man and wife as those relations were at common law in this tiiktrict. ■ In respect of business and property the married woman is given absolute control; in respect of the recovery, security and protection of her property, she may sue, separately, in tort, as if she was .unmarried; and in respect of herself, .that is, of her'pérson, she may sue, separately, as, fully and freely, as if she Were unmarried, “for torts committed against her.” So" the stat- ■ ute expressly reads. But my brethren think that notwith- • standing the destruction by the statute of the unity of the. married relation, it could not have been intended to open the doors of the courts to accusations of‘all sorts ,by husband and wife against each other; and, therefore, they áre ■moved to add, by construction, to the provision that married women may “sue separately . . . for torts committed against them as fully and freely as if they were unmarried” these words: “Provided, however, that *623the wife shall not be entitled, in any case, to sue her husband separately for a tort' committed against her person” jlf the husband violently takes possession of his wife’s prpperty and withholds it from her she may, under the statute, sue him, separately, for its recovery. But such a civil action will,be one in tort. If he injures or destroys her property she may, under the statute, Sue him, separately, for damages. That action would also be one in tort. If’these propositions are disputed, what becomes of the words in the statute to the effect that she may “sue separately for the recovery, security and protection” of her property? But if-they are conceded — as I. think they must be — then Congress, undfer the construction jiow placed by the court on the statute, is put in the anomalous position of allowing a married woman to sue her husband separately, in tort, for the recovery of her property, but denying her the right or privilege to sue him separately, in tort, for damages arising from his brutal assaults upon her person. I will not assume that Congress intended to bring about any such result. I cannot believe that it intended to permit the wife to sue the husband separately, in tort, for the recovery, including damages for the detention, of her property, and at the same time deny her the right to sue him, separately, for a tort committed against her person.
I repeat that with the policy, wisdom or, justice of the legislation in question this court can have no rightful concern. It must táke the law as it has been established by competent legislative authority. It cannot, in any legal sense, make law, but only declare what the law is, as established by competent authority.
My brethren feel constrained to say that the present case illustrates the attempt, often made, to effect radical changes in the common law by mere construction. On the contrary, the. judgment just rendered will have, as I think, the effect to defeat, the clearly expressed will of *624the legislature by a construction of its words that cannot be reconciled with their ordinary meaning.
I dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court, and am authorized to.say that Me. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Hughes concur in this dissent.