Freeman

68 Conn. 533 | Conn. | 1897

Baldwin, J.

Mrs. Mitchell, being a citizen of Connecticut, married a citizen of Connecticut in 1857, and they continued to reside in this State until his death. Her marriage gave her, under the laws of the State then in force, substantially the status which belonged to a married woman at common law. Her personal identity, from a juridical point of view, was merged in that of her husband. Thereafter, during coverture, she could make no contract that would be binding upon her, even by his express authority. 1 Swift’s Dig. 30. If she assumed to make such a contract, it was absolutely void.

These personal disabilities the common law imposed partly for the protection of the husband, and partly for that of the wife. To preserve what property rights remained to her, as far as might be, against his creditors, various statutes were from time to time enacted, until this long ago became recognized as the established policy of the State. Jackson v. Hubbard, 36 Conn. 10, 15. These statutes were mainly designed to protect her against others. The common law was sufficient to protect her against herself, and prior to 1877 it precluded her from making any contract as surety for her husband. Kilbourn v. Brown, 56 Conn. 149. A statute of that year establishes a different rule for women married after its enactment, but does not enlarge the rights of those previously married. General Statutes, § 2796.

Whenever a peculiar status is assigned by law to the members of any particular class of persons, affecting their general position in or with regard to the rest of the community, no one belonging to such class . can vary by any contract the rights and liabilities incident to this status. Anson’s Principles of Contract, 328. If he could, his private agreements would outweigh the law of the land. Jus publicum privatorum paetis inutari non potest.

Coverture constitutes such a status, and one of its incidents in this State, at the time of Mrs. Mitchell’s marriage, was a total disability to contract. So far as contracts of suretyship for their husbands are concerned, the disability of women married before 1877 remains absolute, unless both husband and wife have executed for public record a written contract, by which both accede to the provisions of the statute of that year and accept the rights which it offers to them. General Statutes, § 2798. No such contract was ever executed by Mrs. Mitchell.

The claim in favor of the First National Bank of Chicago which has been allowed by the commissioners on her estate, was founded on a debt due from a mercantile firm in Illinois of which her husband was a member, for which she had assumed to make herself responsible, as guarantor, b}’ a writing dated in Illinois but signed in this State. The creditor had agreed, in Illinois, with the firm to forbear suit if she and they (asa firm and individually) would become parties to such a paper; and, after they had signed it there, had given it to her husband, in Illinois, to take to her, in this State, for execution. He procured her signature and then mailed the instrument to one of his partners at Chicago, by whom it was there delivered to the bank. The agreement of forbearance had been conditioned on the execution of the guaranty by the firm, its individual members, and Mrs. Mitchell. It was her credit only that was to give it value. Its execution by the others gave the bank nothing which it did not have, as fully, before. It did not become complete until it received her signature. It did not then become operative as a security, until it had been delivered to the creditor.

Her husband cannot be deemed to have acted in procuring Mrs. Mitchell’s signature, as the agent of the bank. No finding to that effect was made b}- the trial court, and no such agency is implied from the circumstances of the transaction. He had a direct interest in obtaining the desired extension of credit. He was a principal in the obligation. He sent the paper, as soon as it was completed, not to the bank, but to another of the principals. If he represented anyone but himself, it was his copartners. The delivery of the paper by his wife to him, therefore, after her signature had been attached, was not a delivery to the bank, but simply purported to give him authority, as her agent, to make or procure such a delivery at some subsequent time.

If, therefore, the guaranty, so far as concerns her obligation upon it, was ever delivered, it was delivered, and so first took effect, in Chicago. But its delivery there could not affect her, unless it was made by her or by her authorized agent. Morse, the partner who actually handed it to the bank, stood in no better position than her husband, whether regarded as the servant of the latter, or as a partner with him. In either case, the agency, by virtue of which the delivery was made, was created, if at all, in Connecticut.

But to create an agency is to enter into a contractual relation. Mrs. Mitchell had no capacity to make any contract whereby her legal position in respect to all or any of the other members of the community would be varied. It would have varied it in respect to her husband, could she have constituted him her agent to put her, by the delivery of an instrument of guaranty, in the situation of a surety for his debt to a third part}’. He therefore derived no authority from her to make the delivery to the bank, and, as to her, the instrument never was delivered.

It is true that the guaranty, if a binding contract, was a contract made in Illinois. It might also be assumed, so far as concerns the law of this case (although this is a point as to which we express no opinion), that it was one to be performed in Illinois, and that as to the principals in the transaction it was fully an Illinois contract, and to be governed by the law of Illinois, as respects any question as to its validity. By that law, a married woman was free to enter into such an engagement, and to constitute an agent for that purpose. But the lex loci contractus is a rule of decision only when there is a contract, so made as to be subject to that law. It is a petitio principii to say that because the guaranty was delivered in Chicago, it is therefore to be held effectual or ineffectual, as against Mrs. Mitchell, by the law of that place. The underlying question is, was it, as to her, ever delivered at all? It was not so delivered unless delivered by her authority; and by the laws of Connecticut, where she assumed to give such authority, she could not give it. Cooper v. Cooper, L. R., 13 App. Cases, 88, 99, 100; Story on the Conflict of Laws, §§ 64, 65, 66u, 136; Dicej1- on the Conflict of Laws, Chap. XVIII. Rule 123.

Had Mrs. Mitchell been within the state of Illinois, when she signed the guaranty, it may be that her personal presence would have so far made her a resident of that State as to°subject her to its laws, in respect to acts done within its jurisdiction. But as whatever was done in Illinois to bind her to the bank was done under an agency constituted in Connecticut, it is the law of Connecticut which must determine as to the authority of the agent, and so as to the validity of the obligation which he, as such, undertook to impose upon her by the delivery in Chicago of the paper signed by her in Bristol.

The order drawn by Mrs. Mitchell on the executor of her father’s will, directing him to pay over to the bank whatever might otherwise be coming to her as part of the estate in his bands, though dated at Chicago, was brought to her in behalf of the bank in Connecticut, signed and given back to the agent of the bank in Connecticut, accepted by the executor in Connecticut, and then mailed in Connecticut by its agent to the bank at Chicago. The whole transaction, therefore, was completed here. The order became operative, if at all, to transfer her interest in her father’s estate, when the executor had notice of it, and agreed to comply with it by handing his written acceptance to the agent of the bank. That Mr. Mitchell was acting in that capacity seems clear from the finding that the bank, after the firm had become insolvent and made an assignment for the benefit of its creditors, prepared the paper and sent it to him, to procure her signature to it. No assignment which she could make would . benefit the firm. If its result was to satisfy the claim of the bank, she would be subrogated to its place, and their creditors would receive no greater dividend. The order, also, was for the payment of a share in the estate of a deceased citizen of Connecticut, in course of settlement in its courts. Under these circumstances, its validity must be determined by the laws of Connecticut, and being dependent on the contractual act of a married woman, not for the benefit of herself, her family, or her estate, it was void.

There have been cases not differing essentially in principle from that at bar, in which courts, to whose opinions great consideration is due, have come to conclusions varying from thole which we have reached. The leading one is Milliken v. Pratt, 125 Mass. 374. There a guaranty by a married woman of such debts as her husband might thereafter, contract was signed in Massachusetts, delivered there by her to him, and by him there mailed to the other party, in Maine. The court held that the contract became complete when the guaranty was received and acted upon by the latter, and not before ; and enforced it as one made and to be performed in Maine, where married women then had power to enter into such agreements. No reference was made to the fact (which may, perhaps, have been immaterial under the laws of Massachusetts), that the delivery was made by the husband, acting as the agent of the wife,—a fact which, in our view under the common law of Connecticut, is of controlling importan ce.

Engagements which coverture prevents a woman from making herself, she cannot make through the interposition of an agent, whom she assumes to constitute as such in the State of her domicile. If this were not so, the law could always be evaded by her appointment of an attorney to act for her in the execution of contracts. No principle of comity can require a State to lend the aid of its courts to enforce a security which rests on a transgression of its own law by one of its own citizens, committed within its own territory. Such was, in effect, the act by which Mrs. Mitchell undertook to do what she had no legal capacity to do, by making her husband her agent to deliver the guarantj’ to the bank. He had no more power to make it operative by delivery in Chicago to one of his creditors in, Illinois, than he would have liad to make it operative by delivery here, had it been drawn in favor of one of his creditors in Connecticut. It is not the place of delivery that controls, but the power of delivery.

The Superior Court is advised to disallow all and every part of the claim of the First National Bank.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.