Court Opinion

ID: 3869950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-06 09:04:17.651689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:48:34.875455
License: Public Domain

We are asked to decide in this case whether, under chapter 136 of the Revised Statutes, a man who marries and has living children by his wife acquires an interest in her real estate of inheritance, as secured by the first section of that chapter, which can be legally attached for his debts during her lifetime. We think not. The statute expressly says that the real estate which is the property of any woman before marriage, or which may become her property after marriage, shall be so far secured to her sole and separate use that the same, and the rents, profits, and income thereof, shall not be liable to be attached or in any way taken for the debts of the husband, either before or after his death. The protection extends to the real estate which is the property of a woman before marriage, to the real estate which may become her property after marriage, and to all the rents, profits, and income of her real estate of either description. Let us consider the question submitted to us first, with reference to the real estate which is her property before marriage. Certainly an exemption which covers the real estate which is the property of a woman before marriage, together with all the rents, profits, and income thereof, leaves nothing to be attached; for any interest which the husband acquires therein as the result of the marriage must necessarily be some portion of the real estate or of the rents, profits, or income thereof, all of which is exempt. Does the real estate which becomes her property after marriage stand upon any different footing? We think not. The two descriptions of property are coupled in the same sentence, and in a manner which *Page 128 
shows that they were both intended to have the same immunity. That which is protected is not the real estate which the wife has at the time of the attachment, but the real estate which was her property before or which becomes her property after marriage. And this construction, based on the letter of the statute, is in keeping with its spirit. The design was to secure the estate during the life of the wife from molestation by the creditors of the husband, and this design is promoted by holding that during her life he simply as husband has no interest in her real estate which can be attached in any suit to which she is not a party.
Demurrer sustained.
Subsequently the plaintiff, without reference to the other questions involved in the pleadings, moved for judgment, on the ground that the writ was well served as a writ of summons. After hearing this motion the court gave the following opinion: —