139 Ga. 654 | Ga. | 1913
The plaintiffs in error as administrators of the estate of Mrs. M. E. Puckett, made application to the ordinary for an order granting them leave to sell the land of their intestate, when Mrs. Daisy Puckett Wilson filed her petition for injunction against such application, on the ground that she was entitled to the whole of the estate by reason of the facts alleged in her petition, and for other relief. The substantial allegations of the petition are as follows : The petitioner is the daughter of James Gaffney and his wife Ivatie. Shortly after her birth her father abandoned his family and removed to Texas, where he died many years ago. In December, 1882, when she was an infant of about three months of age she was brought to the home of Mrs. M. E. Puckett by her maternal grandmother, and turned over to the care and custody of Mrs. Puckett under an agreement by her mother and grandmother that Mrs. Puckett was to have the sole custody and service and company
Before adverting to our own decisions, we wish to,call attention to the two general rules on the subject of enforcing a contract by a person for whose benefit it was made, though he was not a party to it,—known respectively as the English and American rules; the statement and rationale of which is so clearly made by Lumpkin, J., in Sheppard v. Bridges, 137 Ga. 615 (74 S. E. 245). The modern English rule has been thus formulated by Cotton, L. J.: “As a general rule, a contract can not be enforced except by a party to the contract; and either of two persons contracting together can sue the other, if the other is guilty of a breach of or does not perform the obligations of that contract. But a third person—a person who is not a party to the contract—can not do so. That rule, however, is subject to this exception: if the contract, although in form it is with A, is intended to secure a benefit to B, so that B is entitled to say he has a beneficial right as cestui que trust under the contract, then B would, in a court of equity, be
In the case at bar Mrs. Wilson was received into the home of Mrs. Puckett as a three-months-old infant, upon the promise by Mrs. Puckett to her mother to adopt her as1 a child. For twenty-five years Mrs. Puckett accepted her service upon the understanding that the agreement with petitioner’s mother was the basis of the relationship 'existing between them. Petitioner grew up as a dutiful daughter of her foster mother; and the latter, most probably with affection for Mrs. Wilson, and with a desire to bind that affection, never disclosed who her mother was, and left it to be
In reaching this conclusion we do not think that we run counter to any decision of this court or statute of this State. The statute declares that “as a general rule” an action on a contract must be brought by a party to it. Civil Code, § 5516. The statutory statement that as a general rule only a party to a contract can enforce it carries with it the implication that there are exceptions to the general rule. The various adjudications of this court on the subject were critically analyzed in Sheppard v. Bridges, supra; and in that case it was held that if a beneficiary of a contract, though not a party to it, stand in a quasi trust relation to its subject-matter, he may enforce his rights under it in a court of equity with proper párties. The present case is to be differentiated from the cases of Gunter v. Mooney, 72 Ga. 205, and Cooper v. Claxton, 122 Ga. 596 (50 S. E. 399), which concerned suits at law by a child to recover, as for breach of contract made by the parent with a stranger, the stipulated compensation for the child’s services. In the present case the subject-matter of the contract was that the petitioner was to be adopted as a child of the promisor, which contract, if it had been consummated, would have given petitioner a beneficial right of inheritance by operation of law, and beyond the express terms of the contract. The suit is in equity; and the changed domestic relation between the foster parent and foster child, together with the right of inheritance under the law, as a result of the changed parental relation, if formal adoption had been consummated under the contract, serves to bring this case within the exception recognized in Sheppard v. Bridges, supra. Robson v. Harwell, 6 Ga. 589.
Judgment affirmed, with direction.