51 Ala. 183 | Ala. | 1874
The appellee, as the administrator of Willis Merriwether, recovered a judgment subjecting the separate estate of the appellant, Mrs. Wright, to the payment of a note executed by her husband, the appellant, John Y. Wright, and herself, given for the rent of a dwelling-house. There is no doubt that the consideration of the note is the subject of the liability of the wife’s separate estate, if the essential circumstances were present in the transaction. The proof showed that the husband had in Tennessee an estate, including a dwelling-house, worth twenty thousand dollars, but that he was in debt twenty-five thousand dollars. The wife had a
The charge of the court is subject to the objection, that it excluded from the jury any consideration of the possession by this family of another house, sufficiently suitable to their degree and condition in life. Not even a supplying to the family of the most indispensable articles would be a charge against the husband in invitum, if there was no necessity for it. A supposition of necessity on the part of the vendor would not alter the case, unless he was cognizant of .some circumstances which justified his belief, and, indeed, almost proved the necessity. The charge refused is objectionable, because it makes the suitableness of the house to the degree and condition of the family the test of the necessity for another house, without reference to any of the circumstances which might render it a duty for the family to remove from it.
We do not think the house in Tennessee need be taken into consideration at all. It is beyond the jurisdiction of our courts and laws, and we cannot adapt our legislation and judicial action to those of another State.
The demurrers were properly overruled. It seems unnecessary to consider this case at greater length. When the subject, for which the liability of the wife’s separate estate is claimed, is a proper one, the necessity for the transaction by which it is proposed to bind it must be found by the jury from
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.