Williams v. Paine

Citations

• 169 U.S. 55
• 18 S. Ct. 279
• 42 L. Ed. 658
• 1897 U.S. LEXIS 2133

Syllabus

<p>Under the laws of Maryland, which were in force in the District of Columbia in 1859, it was competent for a married woman, outside pf the District, to execute, with her husband, a power of attorney to convey her lands therein, which, when acknowledged by her according to the statute re.lating to the acknowledgment by married women of deeds conveying their real property in the District, thereby became a valid and sufficient instrument to authorize the conveyance by attorney; and the first section of the act of March 3, 1865, c. 110, 13 Stat. 531, contains a clear legislative recognition of the right to execute such power.</p> <p>Such a power of attorney, executed in one of the Northern States before the civil war by a married woman then residing there, was not revoked by 'the fact that when that war broke out she and her husband removed to the Southern States, where he entered the Confederate service, and where she resided to the close of the war.</p> <p>When the purchase money for land sold under such a power is received by the principal, to permit her heirs after her death to repudiate the transaction, ofi the ground that the power of attorney had been revoked by the war, would be in conflict with every principle of equity and fair dealing.</p> <p>A majority of the court think that the deed made under the power of attorney which is in controversy-in this suit, and which is printed at length in the Statement of the Case, below, was in the nature of a conveyance of the legal title, though defectively executed, and that it came within the provisions of the act of March 3, 1865, and its defective execution was thereby cured.</p> <p>By this disposition of the whole case upon the merits the court is not to be considered as deciding that parties situated as the plaintiffs were in this case, out of possession, can maintain an action for partition.</p>