Kelly v. Eby

Citations

• 141 Pa. 176
• 21 A. 512
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 1059

Syllabus

<p>1. Although where a loan of money is made to a married woman she is under no obligation of repayment,* yet the moral duty arising therefrom is a sufficient consideration to support an express promise to repay, made after the promisor had become discovert: Hemphill v. McClimans 24 Pa. 367.</p> <p>2. But such promise, to be available, must be clear and distinct; and it is then enforceable only according to its terms: Chandler v. Glover, 32 Pa. 509. An acknowledgment alone, even if consistent with a promise to pay, will not be sufficient to validate a promise or contract, void when it was made.</p> <p>3. A promise made by a widow, to repay money alleged to have been loaned to her during coverture, in the words following: “According as I get the money from my boarders, I will give you so much till I pay you the money,” is vague and indefinite, and insufficient to support an action. †</p> <p>(a) In assumpsit against a widow to recover money alleged to have been loaned to her during her coverture, the plaintiff testified that she loaned the money to the defendant, and that a day or two after she called upon the husband of the defendant and obtained from him a note for the money loaned.</p> <p>(5) The defendant testified that the loan was made to her husband. The husband, then solvent, renewed the note from time to time, and paid the interest, but never paid the principal. There was evidence that the plaintiff exhibited the note to her brother on the day she received it, and knew that it was the note of the husband :</p> <p>i. In such case, it was misleading and prejudicial to the defendant to instruct the jury that “ if the defendant asked and received aloan of money, and, in fact, a note of the husband, then insolvent, was given to a woman ignorant of its contents, that would not change the character of the loan.”</p>