5 A.D.2d 744 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1957
Appeal from an order of the County Court of Albany County denying a motion by the defendants (1) to dismiss the complaint for legal insufficiency and (2) to require the plaintiff to separately state and number his causes of action. The defendants are husband and wife. The complaint alleges that the plaintiff is a private detective and investigator and that he had performed “good and valuable professional services” as such, at the special instance and request of the defendant wife, and “that said services were necessaries furnished to the said defendant [wife] and for which the defendant [husband], as her husband, and the defendant [wife] personally, are both legally and lawfully responsible ” and that the services were of the “agreed price and reasonable value of $1,050.00”. The motion to dismiss should have been granted. A husband cannot be held liable for detective services rendered at the request of the wife in preparation for an action of divorce but he may be held liable for services in connection with a separation action, if the services were necessary “ to protect the interests of the wife ” (Lanyon’s Detective Agency v. Cochrane, 240 N. Y. 274, 277). In view of this holding, the complaint must specify the nature of the services to a sufficient degree to demonstrate that they may be found by the trier of the facts to fall within the rule allowing recovery. In these circumstances, the bare allegation of the complaint that the services were “ necessaries ” must be treated as a mere conclusion of law without factual support in the pleading. The complaint should also have been dismissed as against the wife. A wife cannot be held personally liable
