This is a suit in equity to charge the separate estate of a married woman with the payment of certain notes of which her husband is one of the makers, such estate having been acquired subsequently to their execution. It arises out of the following facts: On the 25th of March, 1880, Joseph E. Hannon, Clara M. Hannon, and William H. Hannon executed their three promissory notes, aggregating $14,969.31, dated at Xenia, Ohio, and payable to the order of Joseph E. Hannon, one of the makers. They were subsequently transferred to the complainants before maturity for a valuable consideration. Clara M. Hannon is the wife of Joseph E. Hannon, and at the time the notes were signed she possessed a small separate estate; and in each of the notes she inserted the following provision: 'Mrs. Clara M. Hannon signs this note with the intention of charging her separate estate, both real and personal.' As appears from the statement of counsel, a general demurrer was filed to the original bill, and in disposing of it the court expressed an opinion that the complainants could charge the separate estate in existence when the notes were given, but intimated that the after-acquired property could not be thus charged. The separate estate existing at the time of the execution of the notes was of small value, and the complainants desired to present the question of the liability of the after-acquired estate of the wife for the payment of the notes. They therefore amended their bill so as to show that Mrs. Hannon was not, at its filing, or thereafter, possessed of any of the property which she owned at the time of the execution of the notes, but that she had subsequently acquired by inheritance from the estate of her father, who died in 1882, property of the value of more than $200,000. The amended bill also alleged that Clara M. Hannon signed the notes with the intention to bind her separate estate, whether then in possession or thereafter acquired. To the bill as thus amended a general demurrer was also filed and sustained by the court, and a decree entered that the bill be dismissed. From this decree the appeal is taken.
The case thus presents the single question whether the separate estate of the wife, Mrs. Clara M. Hannon, acquired by her by inheritance from her father, in 1882, is chargeable with the payment of the notes described, executed, and delivered by her and others in March, 1880.
A. B. Cummins, for appellants.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 119-123 intentionally omitted]
At common law, a married woman is disabled from executing any promissory notes, either alone or in conjunction with her husband. A note or other contract signed by both is the obligation of the husband alone; and, in the absence of legislation, a separate estate to her can only be created by conveyance, devise, or contract, and remedies against such estate can be enforced only in equity. At the time Mrs. Hannon signed the notes in controversy, married women in Ohio were subject to their common-law disabilities, except with respect to certain statutory contracts, and had power to charge their separate estates only in accordance with the ordinary rules of equity. Subsequently, in 1884, the laws of Ohio were amended, authorizing thorizing married women, during coverture, to contract to the same extent and in the same manner as if they were unmarried. Amendatory section Rev. St. 3108-3111. And in March, 1887, it was further provided that 'a husband or wife may enter into any engagement or transaction with the other, or with any other person, which either might, if unmarried, subject, in transactions between themselves, to the general rules which control the actions of persons occupying confidential relations with each other.' But at the time the notes in question were signed by Mrs. Hannon the rights and liabilities of married women in Ohio, so far as they differed from the doctrine of the common law, were determined by the following sections of the Revised Statutes, which embodied the provisions of the act known as the 'Keys Act,' passed in April, 1861. These sections are as follows: