Olney v. Howe

Citations

• 89 Ill. 556

Syllabus

<p>1. Contract-—executory, does not pass title to property. A contract or writing between two parties, mother and daughter, whereby the daughter agrees to furnish the mother a home in her family and a good, comfortable support during the term of her natural life, and the mother, in consideration thereof, sells, assigns and transfers to the daughter all her personal effects and $1300, and the notes or other securities held therefor, possession of the same to be given immediately upon the decease of the mother, the mother to have the full use of the interest of the $1300 during her lifetime, and the daughter, after the mother’s death, to pay to a brother $300, where there is no assignment of the note for the $1300, will not take eifect as a completed gift of the note inter vivos, or as an executed contract to work the transfer of title to the daughter, nor to create a trust in the mother for the use of the daughter.</p> <p>2. Same—requisites to a valid contract—mutuality. To make a valid executory contract there must at least be two parties capable of contracting, and both must be bound thereby. The promise of each party must be concurrent, and obligatory on both at the same time, to render the promise of either binding. This is as essential as a consideration.</p> <p>3. Same—of wife to support another in her family. A wife, while living with her husband, who supports his family, either at common law or under the acts of 1861 and 1869, relating to married women, has no legal capacity to make a valid and binding contract to furnish her mother a home in her family, and a good and comfortable support during her natural life. Such a contract does not relate to her separate property, and the subject matter of it is neither the manual labor of the wife from, which she can derive earnings, nor does it have reference to any separate business or trade in which she is proprietress, and out of which earnings can accrue to her.</p>