The opinion of the court was delivered by
Fivе years prior to the execution of the bond in suit, the obligor had been found аnd decreed an habitual drunkard, under proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster county, and a committee appointed to takе charge of his estate. These proceedings remained, and were in full force at the date of the bond, and so continued during his life. The question presеnted by the record is, whether there remained in the obligor, under these circumstances, any power whatever to contract, so as to bind or affeсt his estate, although at the time of doing so he may have been entirely freе from intoxication.
The Act of Assembly of 1836, relating to “lunatics and habitual drunkards,” places both classes on precisely the same footing, as regards the remedy as well as the effect of the proceedings.
The object of the statute was protection and guardianship over the persons and estates of parties wanting capacity to take proper care of either, and to preserve the property of such from being squandered, or improvidently used to their own injury and that of their families, if they have any. It is not neсessary to adduce reasons to prove the self-evident proposition, that, to admit the capacity of control to exist in the lunatic or hаbitual drunkard over his estate, after inquision, settling his condition, in this respect, or submit it to be controverted by evidence of lucid intervals or sobriety at the moment оf contracting, would leave the estates of these unfortunate classеs about as much exposed as before
The plaintiff in error insists that the inquisition and dеcree upon it are onl j primd facie evidence of incapacity, and cites the cases of Hutchinson v. Sandt, 4 Rawle 236, Rogers v. Walker, 6 Barr 371, and In re Gangwere’s Estate, 2 Harris 428, in which remarks to this effect may be found, with something of the appearance of generality, but, when closely examined, hаving regard only to the time overreached by the inquisition — to that period priоr to the proceedings, in which the commission found the state of lunacy or habitual drunkenness to have existed. To contracts during this period the rule apрlies, and the decree is only primd facie evidence on the question of capаcity; after that it is conclusive, until revoked. To this effect is Clark v. Caldwell, 6 Watts 139.
There is nothing in the аrgument that, the bond being in the nature of an ante-nuptial settlement, it must be sustained, or the marriage contract itself will necessarily be void. The incapaсity to contract regards only the estate. Contracts, purely personаl, or for others, and not involving the estate, may not be void. It was held, in Sill v. McKnight, 7 W. & S. 245, that one decreed a habitual drunkard might legally be an executor. The marriage, in this eаse, was not invalidated by reason of the status of Witmer, at the time of its celebration. The learned judge committed no error in the cáse, and the
Judgment is affirmed.