Darnall v. Smith's adm'r

Citations

• 26 Va. 878
• 26 Gratt. 878

Syllabus

<p>I. A married woman, possessed of a separate estate, may charge the same with her debts in like manner and to the same extent as a feme sole.</p> <p>II. The liability of the separate estate of a married woman can only arise out of the supposed intention of the wife. And no pecuniary engagement can be a charge upon the wife’s estate which is not connected by agreement, either express or implied, with said estate.</p> <p>III. If a married woman having separate property enters into a pecuniary engagement, whether by ordering goods or otherwise, which if she were a feme sole would constitute her a debtor, and in entering into such an engagement she purports to contract not for her husband but for herself, and on the credit of her separate estate, and it was so intended by her, and so understood by the person with whom she is contracting; that constitutes an obligation for which the person with whom she contracts has the right to make her separate estate liable: and the question whether the obligation was contracted in this manner must depend upon the facts and circumstances of each particular case.</p> <p>IV. As the charge is a mere question of intention, the wife may extend it to the whole, or confine it to a part of her separate estate. If no specific part is appointed for the payment of the debt, the fair implication is, that the whole estate was intended to be made liable. If, on the other hand, only a part of the estate, expressly or by fair inference, is designed to be charged, no liability whatever can attach to the residue.</p> <p>V. A wife is exempt from all personal liability, and from all personal decrees and judgments upon her contracts. Her undertaking, so far as it is recognized by the courts, is not that she will pay the debt, but that her separate estate shall be answerable for it. And that is bound so far only as she has agreed it shall be bound.</p> <p>W was insolvent, and E, Ms wife, owned a separate estate, part of it under her father’s will, which