70 So. 115 | Ala. | 1915
A fundamental distinction is made between a loan secured from the husband’s creditor and one secured from á third person who is not interested in the disposition of the fund, and who malíes the loan to the wife as an independent business transaction, to do with as she pleases. If the debt sought to be enforced against the wife, or any part of it, was infected with this vice in
The law looks to the intention and the result, and not to the means employed. In the present case, therefore, the mere fact that the proceeds of a nominally independent loan made by plaintiff to defendant were first deposited to’ the account of defendant in the plaintiff bank, and by her checked out to> the husband debtor, is of no significance, if pursuant to previous understanding between plaintiff and husband, the fund was ultimately appropriated to the payment of the husband’s then existing debt. The prime questions were the contemporaneous debtorship of defendant’s husband (which is not disputed) and the accomplished intention of paying his debt with the obligation of defendant, his wife (which was the disputed issue). On this issue, which was necessarily a broad one, the trial judge unduly contracted the inquiries of defendant’s counsel, and excluded evidence which, though purely circumstantial in character, was, we think, quite clearly relevant and admissible.
Let the judgment be reversed, and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.