58 So. 667 | Ala. Ct. App. | 1912
We take it that under the laws of this state the emancipation of the son from the father’s control may be as perfect when they both live together under the same roof as when they live separate from each other. — Donegan v. Davis, 66 Ala. 362. While a father, during the minority of his children, is entitled to their earnings, they are not his slaves, and the creditors of the father have no legal right to complain if the father, acting in good faith, emancipates them. The creditors, therefore, of the father have not, simply because the father is indebted to them, any claim upon or right to subject to their .indebtedness the earnings of a child who has, in good faith, been emancipated.
•J. B. Morris, the father, rented the “Carter old place,” and when he made the mortgage to appellee, that mortgage covered, of course, all of the cotton which was to be raised by said Morris or his servants during the year 1911 on said “Carter old place.” The mortgage, of course, conveyed the legal title to the cotton so raised on said place in 1911 to the appellee.
There is evidence in the bill of exceptions tending to show that J. B. Morris, the father, when the crops were planted, agreed with his said two minor sons, J. Bonner Morris and Willie S. Morris, that a certain 4-acre tract of land on said “Carter old place” so rented by him should, if they would work it, be their cotton, and that he should have no right in or title to the cotton so raised by them on said four acres; in other words, that they should have that cotton for their labor in planting, working, and gathering it. The evidence further tends to show that the mortgage to Fountain above referred to was given to* said Fountain on the cotton thén growing on said four acres.
While, as we have above stated, a father may make an agreement with a minor child that such child shall have the proceeds of his labor, and while such agreement is, if made in good faith, binding both upon the father and upon his creditors, unless the father revokes the agreement before the proceeds of such child’s labor is disposed of by him (see Hooper v. Payne, 94 Ala. 223; 10 South. 431), we do not think that this rule has any applicability to the facts of this case. In this case the father made a mortgage in the early part of the year which conveyed the legal title to the crop to be grown by him or his servants that year on the “Carter old place.” The appellee furnished to- the father the supplies needed by him and the members of his family to enable them to live while he made the crop. The sons lived in the same house with the father, ate with him at the same table — supplied, in all probability, in large part with articles of food furnished by appellee under its mortgage— and were members of his family. If these sons had been hired servants, and the crops grown on the four acres of land had constituted in part
Under all the evidence, considered in the most favorable light in which it can be considered for appellant, the appellee in this case was entitled to recover.
There is no error in the record, and the judgment of the court below is affirmed.
Affirmed.