Court Opinion

ID: 9416938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:58:40.565462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:55.585290
License: Public Domain

Mri Jhstice MILLER,
dissenting:
This is a common-law action brought on a promissory *150note on the law side of a court which possesses and exercises in separate forums both common law and equity jurisdiction.
The District of Columbia, for which that court sits, and whose laws it administers, has preserved the principles of the common law less affected by statutes than any part of America, and, perhaps, less than England herself.
That a married woman could make no express contract, except as she joined her' husband with her, by that law is, I think, too clear for argument. It is, therefore, a waste of learning to inquire under what circumstances she could contract with her husband. The plaintiff in this cáse could make no lawful contract with Sykes unless under very special circumstances.
The act of Congress relied on, and which is deemed necessary to the validity of the note, so far removed this general disability as to enable her to make contracts in respect to her separate property, and I agree to the definition of the court as to what is separate property within the meaning of that ac,t. Her dower interest in her husband’s land is not separate property. This is conceded.
On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that a release of dower is a good consideration for a promise, whether in writing or otherwise, and the promise would be valid if. made to a person capable of contracting. But this leaves untouched the question of plaintiff’s capacity to make the contract.
The release of dower and the agreement to pay a certain sum for it was one contract. The execution of the deed of release and of the notes were each the consideration for the other. I cannot see the force of the dialectics by which, after the eoutraet is made, the note 'given as evidence of one part of it is called the separate property of the wife, Concerning which the contract was made. That is to say, this contract wras made in reference to the paper, and it constitutes the material part of the note, and, this being her separate property, enables her to make the contract by which Sykes became her debtor.
But suppose no no.te had been taken, the promise would *151have been just as good as it is with' it. Where would then have been her separate property, about which she was authorized to contract ?
It is clear to me that, to enable a married woman .to contract, she must have and own separate property at the time of making the contract, and that to make that contract valid it must relate to that property. If the proposition on which this case is' rested be sound, the wife need have no separate property to enable her to contract; but she can make any agreement by which she is to receive something, put it in writing, call the paper which evidences the agreement her separate property, and the thing is done.
As to the invasions which courts of e'quity7 have made on the rigid and unjust rules of the common law on this subject, they are wise and beneficent, and they were made because the common law courts afford no remedy, and if this were a suit in equity.by Mrs. Chadwick to recover the value of her dower after she had legally7 conveyed it, I would gladly enforce h.er right. But that is not the case, and I do not think the courts have an unlimited right to overturn the clearest principles of the common law because legislation has lagged behind the progress of the age in the jurisprudence which governs the rights of married women.
I regret to have to dissent, but I think the precedent of making laws in this manner too .pernicious to be acquiesced •in by my silence.