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58 Ill. 48

Howarth v. Warmser

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1871

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1871-01-15

Clair county; the Hon. Joseph Gillespie, Judge, presiding. This action was originally brought before a justice of the peace, by Leopold Warmser and Hath an Gutman, partners, doing business as Warmser & Co., against James Howarth and Margaret, his wife.

Relies on Connor v. Berry

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently November 1950

3 state decisions

10187118801890190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Mr. Chief Justice Lawrence

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court:

¶2We held, in Connor v. Berry, 46 Ill. 370, and McMurtry v. Webster, 48 ib. 123, that the husband was still, as at common law, liable for the debts of his wife, contracted before marriage, notwithstanding the act of 1861, because that act still left to the husband the wife’s earnings. Since those decisions were made, the legislature, by the act of 1869, has taken from the husband all control over the earnings of his wife, and thus swept away the last vestige of the reasons upon which the common law rule rested. The rule itself must now cease. Legislative action has virtually abolished it, by taking away its foundations and rendering its enforcement unjust.

¶3The judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded.

¶4Judgment reversed.

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