MARGARET A. CALDWELL
vs.
J. & B. HART.
Appeal from the Chancery Court of Hinds county, Hon. E. G. Peyton, Chancelor.
Appellees are merchants, and filed their bill in Chancery against appellant, to enforce the collection, out of her separate estate, an open account created by her husband.
The bill states that appellees sold the goods mentioned in the account to appellant’s husband, and charged the same to him, supposing that he owned the plantation which really belongs to the wife. It admits that the credit was, in the first instance, given to the husband, and that after the husband’s death appellees sued his administrator and recovered a judgment, and afterwards discovered that the plantation belonged to the wife. It charges that the goods sold to the husband were for the benefit of the wife’s separate estate, being supplies used in the cultivation of the plantation.
The answer denied that any of the goods were purchased for, or used on the wife’s estate.
The Chancelor rendered a decree for complainants; hence this appeal.
GEORGE, C. J.
Held-
1st. It is now insisted that because the goods were purchased by the husband and he stated they were for the use of the plantation which the appellees supposed to be his, but was really the wife’s, she is estopped to deny that they were received by her and used on the plantation for her benefit. We do not consider this a just view. If it be considered as an established rule that when the husband proposes to act for and on behalf of the wife under his statutory authority to bind the wife’s estate by his contract for supplies for her plantation, and he is treated with by the merchant in that capacity, his mere statement that the supplies purchased by him were for the use of the wife’s plantation would estop the wife from asserting the contrary, it would by no means follow that when he acts on his own behalf and treats with the merchant on that basis, his statement as to the use which he intends to make of the goods would have the same effect.
2d. When a person, who is an agent, contracts in his own name, on his own behalf and on his own credit, he alone is responsible. If it be sought to charge an undisclosed principle on such a contract, it must be shown that the contract was really in behalf of the principal and for his use.
3d. The agency of the husband to make contracts for supplies for the plantation of the wife, where no consent of the wife is shown, results from a statutory power, which he may exercise or not at his discretion. He is under no obligation or duty to exercise it, and this agency for the wife exists under the statute only when he makes such a contract or proposes so to act for the wife.
4. The proof shows that the goods sold were both family and plantation supplies. There is a failure to show the wife’s consent for the husband to make the purchase on her credit. Without such proof, there can be no recovery against her. The husband is personally bound for family supplies, and the wife can never be charged with them except by her consent.
Reversed, and bill dismissed.