126 Ga. 24 | Ga. | 1906
The only reasonable construction of the evidence "leads to the conclusion that Mrs. Wyche conducted the foundry and machine works, employing the assumed name merely for the purposes of convenience. It was her business and she was the real person at interest. The fact that she conducted the business under a separate name rendered the business no less her individual enterprise, and rendered her no less responsible for its obligations. Under circumstances such as connect Mrs. Wyche with the George Foundry and Machine Works as indicated by the record in this • case, the presumption is that the taking of the mortgage and pro- ■ ceeding to foreclose the same was at her instance and direction. It was competent for her to assume any business name which she •desired, and any contract which she may have made thereunder will be binding upon her. So if she sues under that name she would afterwards be estopped from denying the binding effect of the judgment should the result be unfavorable to her. “There is nothing so sacred in a name that right and justice should be sacrificed to its sanctity.” 14 Enc. Pl. & Pr. 278. “If the true owner ■eonvej's property by any name, the conveyance as between the grantor and grantee will transfer the title.” Fallon v. Kehoe, 38 Cal. 44, 99 Am. Dec. 347, and cases cited in note. So it is not so much the name but the identity of the person who causes the name to be employed that is the main question. In Fallon’s case, supra, it is said: “It would have been better, perhaps, if the statute had contained a provision to the effect that when the owner of land ■ conveys it by a different name from that in which he acquired it, the deed should contain a proper reference to that fact, for the security of subsequent purchasers 'or encumbrancers. But there is no such requirement in the statute or at common law, and we have no power to exact conditions not found in the law. If land be conveyed to an unmarried woman, who afterward marries and becomes
This case is in no way controlled by the cases of Barbour v. Albany Lodge, 73 Ga. 474; Thurmond v. Cedar Spring Baptist Church, 110 Ga. 816; Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Inman Park Presbyterian Church, 111 Ga. 677; Wynn v. Richard Allen Lodge, 115 Ga. 796. The distinction is apparent. In each of those cases there was the absence of a real party acting under an assumed name. It was really the case of suing a fictitious person as de
Judgment reversed.