Court Opinion

ID: 9864948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:17:47.593634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:13.408102
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Bouck,
specially concurring.
The judgment of affirmance is right. The homesteader, defendant in error here, is claiming an exemption under R. S. U. S., §2296 (U. S. C. A., Tit. 43, §175) as against a judgment for a liquidated sum, recovered in a New Mexico court before issuance of his homestead patent. The judgment was for damages on account of breach of his promise to marry. Counsel for plaintiff in error argue earnestly that the judgment was on a cause of action in tort, but it was clearly on contract. It is undoubtedly a “debt contracted,” within the meaning of the homestead act. See In re C. L. Radway, 3 Hughes (U. S. 4th Circuit) 609, Case No. 11,523, 20 Fed. Cas. 154, and authorities there cited. True, the trial court erred in pronouncing the “liability” on the original promise to marry as in itself a ‘‘ debt contracted ’ ’ at the date of the promise. Such liability was, of course, not in a liquidated or then ascertainable sum, and so not a debt in the sense of the word as used in this connection. Moreover, at that time no cause of action whatever had accrued. However, the error was not prejudicial inasmuch as the uncontradieted evidence shows the court’s decision to be right, though the reason assigned was not. O’Neil v. Ft. Lyon C. Co., 39 Colo. 487, 497, 90 Pac. 849, 852.
I file this concurring’ opinion because Mr. Justice Holland’s opinion may possibly be interpreted as approving and adopting the aforesaid error of the trial court. To *458that I do not agree. If the promise of marriage had been given before issuance of the patent on the homestead, but no judgment entered until after such issuance, the homesteader could not, I think, have successfully asserted his exemption; for in that event no “debt” would have been “contracted” before patent. The question as to whether a judgment on a cause of action in tort is a debt within the meaning of the exemption provision is not now before us.