22 N.Y.S. 175 | City of New York Municipal Court | 1893
The defendant,, a married man, refused and failed to support his wife; she applied to and received from the commissioners of charities and correction of this county authority to proceed as complainant against the defendant, for nonsupport. After due proceedings were taken he was required to give a bond as required by law for her support and maintenance, by a police justice. The plaintiff’s assignor rendered legal services in said proceedings, and the plaintiff now seeks to recover the value of such service upon the theory that they were necessaries supplied the wife, and consequently he is liablé therefor. A wife it is true has the right to procure necessaries, and her husband is bound to pay therefor, and it has been frequently decided that legal services rendered to the wife fall within that term, but an investigation of all such cases will show that the wife was a party as plaintiff or defendant in the action for which the husband was held liable to the attorney for the value of his legal services. Such services were rendered the wife in prosecuting or defending her marital relations, and for that purpose she was justified in procuring the services of a lawyer, and his services were deemed necessaries just as much as necessary food, fuel, shelter and clothing would he, but it is to that extent, and that extent only, that a husband is liable. In the proceeding in which the legal services sued for herein were rendered, the defend-, ant’s wife was not a party nor were her marital rights under consideration. It was a proceeding prosecuted by the people
MoG-own, J., concurs.
Judgment reversed.