190 F. 390 | D. Vt. | 1911
Petition of the town of Bristol, a creditor, for a review of the decision of the referee allowing claim of the estate of the bankrupt’s wife.
The parties waive hearing and submit no briefs. The facts found by the referee are not controverted, and are as follows :
“Ada M. 31111 was the wife of the said Newell .T. Hill, ¡bankrupt, and died during the winter of 1900-10. In the course of her married life she liad received gifts of property from her father and grandfather, and inherited from them at their decease. This property consisted in large part of money which she deposited in her own name in a local bank. During a large pari, of her married life she had thus maintained an account at said bank, and had been accustomed to draw upon it by check signed by herself. On the 19th day of May. A. D. 1909, her husband, the said bankrupt, had an indebtedness of $500 to one E. W. Varney, mature, and was unable to meet the obligation. The wife drew her check for that amount in favor of said Varney, and on the same date the said bankrupt gave his note for $500 to her. The administrator of the estate of Ada M. Hill — \V. N. Dili by name and a brother of the bankrupt — now presents this claim for $500 of borrowed money and interest thereon, and offers the aforesaid note in proof of the debt”
This claim was allowed by the referee on the ground that in Vermont a married woman may possess a sole and separate estate.
“All personal property and rights of action acquired by a woman before coverture or during coverture, except by gift from her husband, shall be held to her sole and separate use, and neither the wife’s separate property nor the rents, issues, income and products of the same shall be liable to the disposition of her husband or liable for his debts; but nothing herein contained shall authorize a claim by either husband or wife against the other for personal services.”
Under this statute, so long as the wife keeps her property separate from that of her husband, it shall be held to be hers.
“A married woman may make contracts with any person other than her husband, and bind herself and her separate property, in the same manner as if she were unmarried, and may sue anti be sued as to all such contracts made by her. either before or during coverture, without her husband being joined in the action as plaintiff or defendant, and execution may issue against her, and be levied on her sole and separate goods, chattels and estate.”
It will be readily observed that this statute does not recognize contractual relations between husband and wife. Therefore the wife cannot maintain a suit at law against her husband for money loaned to him, as a contract between them would be void in law. In some states it has been held that, where such contracts are void in law, they should of right be void in equity, notably Massachusetts. In Re Blandin, Fed. Cas. No. 1,527, Judge John Rowell held that a claim like the one at bar could he proved in bankruptcy. He contended that equitable debts are within the scope of the bankruptcy act. This case has been cited with approval by the Supreme Court of the United States. Fleitas v. Richardson, 147 U. S. 550, 13 Sup. Ct. 495, 37 L. Ed. 276. It has been frequently cited by district and circuit judges in the federal courts. But in Re Talbot (D. C.) 7 Am. Bankr. Rep. 29, 110 Fed. 924, Judge Francis C. Rowell disallowed in bankruptcy the claim of a wife against
The national bankruptcy court is a court of equity as well as of law,. As to this the citation of authorities is unnecessary. Claims like this rest upon the state statute and the construction given it by the state courts. In many states, including Vermont, the courts hold, under statutes similar to the statutes of Vermont above quoted, thfit a loan of money or of chattels by a wife to her husband, not intended as..a gift, may be enforced against the husband in courts of equity. In Barron v. Barron, 24 Vt. 375, Judge Isham, for the Supreme Court, carefully discusses this question. He recognized at common law the right of a husband to reduce the wife’s property to his possession, that he may transfer or dispose of it, and upon his bankruptcy or insolvem cy it would vest in his assignees for the benefit of his creditors, and the wife, whatever may have been her fortune, may be left destitute of means of subsistence, but he says:
“To remedy this deficiency in .the common law, courts of equity frota thé earliest period have exercised their power by giving to the wife a right to a provision out of her own property which has become termed the equity of the wife.”
And, since the case of Lady Elibank v. Montoliere, 5 Ves. 737, the wife has been permitted to assert her claim in equity.
There are many cases in which injunctions have been granted restraining the husband from enforcing his legal remedies to obtain the wife’s property or to reduce the same to his possession, and this was regarded, under the common law, as a salutary rule in cases of insolvency of the husband. Where the wife has retained her equity in her
“That it the husband should, for good reasons, after marriage, contract with his wife that she should separately possess and enjoy property bequeathed to her, the contract wonld be upheld in equity.”
Chancellor Kent, in 2 Kent, 147, 154, states:
“That a wife may contract with her husband, even by parol, after marriage. for a, transfer of property from him, to her, or to trustees for her, provided it be for a bona fide and valuable consideration.”
In Pinney et al. v. Fellows, 15 Vt. 536, the court held that upon the receipt of property by the husband from the wife, even after marriage, if for suitable reasons he entered into an agreement with the wife that she should possess and enjoy it separately from him, equity will uphold such postnuptial agreement in cases in which the claims of creditors will not be prejudiced by so doing.
In the case at bar the rights of the creditors are not prejudiced at all. The loan that the wife made to the husband was used in paying another debt, which other debt would have been provable against this estate had she not furnished the money to pay it.
- In the case at bar it clearly appears that both the husband and wife -recognized her estate as sole and separate from that of her husband. When she paid a debt for him and took his note therefor, the note is evidence of the fact that there was no intent on the part of either the husband or wife that that sum of money should be reduced to his pos
■ The order of the referee is affirmed.