Sceva v. True

53 N.H. 627 | N.H. | 1873

Ladd, J.

It is obvious, we think, that one question which has been argued .by counsel at considerable length, namely, whether legal service of a writ can be made upon an insane person or idiot, is not be-ore the court, on this motion to dismiss, in such way that any pracical results would be gained by deciding it. The agreement of the arties is not that the suit shall be dismissed in case the court are of opinion that the service was insufficient, but only that the facts may be taken to be as stated for no other purpose but to present the question to the court; and, if the decision should be adverse to the plaintiff, we see no reason why he is not still in a position to take the objection that the matter ought to have been pleaded in abatement in order that an issue may be raised for trial by jury upon the facts which he reserves the right to contest. For this reason we have not considered that question.

The other facts stated in the motion (which is to be regarded rather as an agreed case than a motion to dismiss) stand upon a different footing, inasmuch as they go to the merits of the case, and may be pleaded in bar or given in evidence under the general issue, and, when so pleaded or proved, their legal effect will be a matter upon which the court, at the trial, must pass. Some suggestions upon this part of the case may therefore be of use.

■ We regard it as well settled by the cases referred to in the briefs of counsel, many of which have been commented on at length by Mr. Shirley.'for the defendant, that an insane person, an idiot, or a person'’ utterly bereft of all sense and reason by the sudden stroke of accident or disease, may be held liable, in assumpsit, for necessaries furnished to him in good faith while in that unfortunate and helpless condition. And the reasons upon which this rests are too broad, as well as too sensible and humane, to be overborne by any deductions which a refined logic may make from the circumstance that in such cases there can be no contract or promise in fact, — no meeting of the minds of the parties. The cases put it on the ground of an implied contract; and by this is not meant, as the defendant’s counsel seems to suppose, an actual contract, — that is, an actual meeting of the minds of the parties, an actual, mutual understanding, to be inferred from language, acts, and circumstances, by the jury, — but a contract and promise, said to be implied by the law, where, in point of fact, there was no contract, no mutual understanding, and so no promise. The defendant’s counsel says it is usurpation for the court to hold, as matter of law, that there is a contract and a* promise, when all the evidence in the case shows that there was not a contract, nor the semblance of one. It is doubtless a-legal fiction, invented and used for the sake of the remedy. If it was originally usurpation, certainly it has now become very inveterate, and firmly fixed in the body of the law.

Suppose a man steals my horse, and afterwards sells it for cash : the law says I may waive the tort, and recover the money received for the animal of him in an action of assumpsit. Why ? Because the law, in order to protect my legal right to have the money, and enforce against the thief his legal duty to hand it over to me, implies a promise, that is, feigns a promise when there is none, to support the assumpsit. In order to recover, I have only to show that the defendant, without right, sold my horse for cash, which he still retains. Where are the circumstances, the language or conduct of the parties from which a meeting of their minds is to be inferred, or implied, or imagined, or in any way found by the jury ? The defendant never had any other purpose but to get the money for the horse and make off with it. The owner of the horse had no intention to sell it, never assented to the sale, and only seeks to recover the money obtained for it to save himself from total loss. The defendant, in such a case, may have the physical capacity to promise to pay over to the owner the money which he means to steal; but the mental and moral capacity is wanting, and to all practical intents the capacity to promise according to his duty may be said to be as entirely wanting as in the case of an idiot or lunatic. At all events, he does not do it. He struggles to get away with the money, and resists with a determination never to pay if he can help it. Yet the law implies, and against his utmost resistance forces into his mouth, a promise to pay. So, where a brutal husband, without cause or provocation, but from wanton cruelty or caprice, drives his wife from his house, with no means of subsistence, and warns the tradesmen not to trust her on his account, thus expressly revoking all authority she may be supposed to have, as his agent, by virtue of the marital relation, courts of high authority have held that a promise to pay for necessaries furnished her while in this situation, in good faith, is implied by law against the husband, resting upon and arising out of his legal obligation to furnish her support. See remark of Sargent in Ray v. Alden, 50 N. H. 83, and authorities cited. So, it was held that the law will imply a promise to pay toll for passing upon a turnpike road, notwithstanding the defendant, at the time of passing, denied his liability and refused payment. Proprietors of Turnpike v. Taylor, 6 N. H. 499. In the recent English case of The Great Northern Railw. Co. v. Swaffield, L. R., 6 Exch. 132, the defendant sent a horse by the plaintiffs’ railway directed to himself at S. station. On the arrival of the horse at S. station, at night, there was no one to meet it, and the plaintiffs, having no accommodation at the station, sent the horse to a livery stable. The defendant’s servant soon after arrived and demanded the horse: he was referred to the livery stable keeper, who refused to deliver the horse except on payment of charges which were admitted to be reasonable. On the next day the defendant came and demanded the horse, and the station-master offered to pay the charges and let the defendant take away the horse ; but the defendant declined, and went away without the horse, which remained at the livery stable. The plaintiffs afterwards offered to deliver the horse to the defendant at S. without payment of any charges, but the defendant refused to receive it unless delivered at his farm, and with payment of a sum of money for his expenses and loss of time. Some months after, the plaintiffs paid the livery stable keeper his charges, and sent the horse to the defendant, who received it; and it was held that the defendant was liable, upon the ground of a contract implied by law, to the plaintiffs for the livery charges thus paid by them.

Illustrations might be multiplied, but enough has been said to show /that when a contract or promise implied by law is spoken of, a very ^different tiling is meant from á contract in fact, whether express or (tacit. The evidence of an actual contract is generally to be found either in some writing made by the parties, or in verbal communications which passed between them, or in their acts and conduct considered in the light of the circumstances of each particular case. A contract implied by law, on the contrary, rests upon no evidence. It has no actual existence ; it is simply a mythical creation of the law. The law says it shall be taken that there was a promise, when, in point of fact, there was none. Of course this is not good logic, for the obvious and sufficient reason that it is not true. It is a legal fiction, resting wholly for its support on a plain legal obligation, and a plain legal right. If it were true, it would not be a fiction. There is a class of legal rights, with their correlative legal duties, analogous to the obligationes quasi ex contractu of the civil law, which seem to lie in the region between contracts on the one hand, and torts on the other, and to call for the application of a remedy not strictly furnished either by actions ex contractu, or actions ex delicto. The common law supplies no action of duty, as it does of assumpsit and trespass; and hence the somewhat awkward contrivance of this fiction to apply the remedy of assumpsit where there is no true contract, and no promise to support it.

All confusion in this matter might be avoided, as it seems to me, by a suitable discrimination in the use of the term implied contract. In the discussion of any subject, there is always danger of spending breath and strength about mere words, as well as of falling into error when the same term is used to designate two different things. If the term, implied contract, be used indifferently to denote (1) the fictitious creation of the law spoken of above; (2) a true or actual but tacit contract, that is, one where a meeting of the minds or mutual understanding is inferred as matter of fact from circumstances, no words written or verbal having been used ; and (3) that state of things where one is estopped by his conduct to deny a contract, although, in fact, he has not made or intended to make one, — it is not strange that confusion should result, and disputes arise where there is no difference of opinion as to the substance of the matter in controversy: whereas, were a different term applied to each, as, for example, that of legal duty to designate the first, contract, simply, to designate the second, and, contract by estoppel, the third, this difficulty would be avoided. It would of course come to the same'thing, in substance, if the first were always called an implied contract, while the other two were otherwise designated in such way as to show distinctly what is meant. This is not always done, and an examination of our own cases would perhaps show that more or less confusion has arisen from such indiscriminate use of the term. A better nomenclature is desirable. But whatever terms are employed, it is indispensable that the distinction, which is one of substance, should be kept clearly in mind, in order that the principles governing in one class of cases may not be erroneously applied to another. See remarks of Smith, J., in Bixby v. Moore, 51 N. H. 402, and authorities cited at page 404.

Much may doubtless be said against supplying a remedy for the enforcement of a plain legal right “ by so rude a device as a legal fiction” — Maine’s Ancient Law 26; but, at this time of day, that is a matter, for the consideration of the legislature rather than the courts. The remedy of indebitatus assumpsit can hardly be abolished in that large class of cases where it can only be sustained by resorting to a fiction until some other is furnished to take its place. _

It by no means follows that this plaintiff is entitled to recover. In the first place, it must appear that the necessaries furnished to the defendant were furnished in good faith, and with no purpose to take advantage of her unfortunate situation. And upon this question, the great length of time which was allowed to pass 'without procuring the appointment of a guardian for her is a fact to which the jury would undoubtedly attach much weight. Its significance and importance must, of course, depend very much on the circumstances under which the delay and omission occurred, all of which will be for the jury to consider upon the question whether everything was done in good faith towards the defendant, and with an expectation on the part of the plaintiff’s intestate that he was to be paid. Again : the jury are to consider whether the support for which the plaintiff now seeks to recover was not furnished as a gratuity, with no expectation or intention that it should be paid for, except so far as compensation might be derived from the use of the defendant’s share of the farm. And, upon this point, the relationship existing between the parties, the length of time the defendant was there in the family without any move on the part of Enoch F. Sceva to charge her or her estate, the absence (if such is the fact) of an account kept by him wherein she was charged with her support, and credited for the use and occupation of the land, — in short, all the facts and circumstances of her residence with the family that tend to show the intention or expectation of Enoch F. Sceva with respect to being paid for her support, are for the jury. Munger v. Munger, 33 N. H. 581; Seavey v. Seavey, 37 N. H. 125; Bundy v. Hyde, 50 N. H. 116. If these services were rendered, and this support furnished, with no expectation on the part of Enoch F. Sceva that he was to charge or be paid therefor, this suit cannot be maintained ; for then it must be regarded substantially in the light of a gift actually accepted and appropriated . by the defendant, without reference to her capacity to make a contract, or even to signify her acceptance by any mental assent.

In this view, the facts stated in the case will be evidence for the jury to consider upon the trial; but they do not present any question of law upon which the rights of the parties can be determined by the court.

Case discharged.