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96 Mass. 163

Warner v. Crouch

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 15, 1867

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1867-01-15

<p>The sole deed of a married woman, executed without her husband’s written assent, of land which was conveyed to her before the date of any of the statutes providing for the separate estates of married women, is absolutely void, and a note given in payment of the purchase money thereof is without consideration; and no action can be maintained on such note, although the grantee named in the deed has entered into possession of the land, and cut and removed wood to the full value of the purchase money, and although in the deed the grantor was described as a married woman.</p>

Decided 1867-01-15

Hoar, J.

¶1The note upon which the action is brought was wholly without consideration. It was given to the plaintiff’s intestate as a part of the price of a piece of land which the defendant undertook to buy of her, and which she professed to convey to him by deed. She was a married woman, and her husband did not join in the deed. The land was not her separate property, but was conveyed to her during coverture, in the year 1842, before the date of any of the statutes providing for the separate estates of married women. The conveyance to her therefore gave her husband a seisin in her right for her life. Her separate deed was wholly void, and had no validity or effect whatever. Townsley v. Chapin, 12 Allen, 476. It did not even give the defendant a license to enter on the land. Concord Bank v. Bellis, 10 Cush. 276.

¶2The defendant, then, has received nothing of any value whatever for his note. The facts find that he has entered upon the land and taken a large amount of wood; but he acquired no right to do so under the deed. Paying the note would give him no title to the land.

¶3 Judgment for the defendant.

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