(DOWNLOAD) "Randall v. Kreiger" by United States Supreme Court # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Randall v. Kreiger
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 01, 1874
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 59 KB
Description
'I am of opinion that the case falls within the curative or remedial provisions of the act of 1857, and that this act, having been passed before the right to dower became consummated by the death of the husband, is a valid exercise of legislative power. 'Until the death of the husband the right to dower is inchoate and contingent. It becomes consummate only upon that event. In my opinion, the better view is that while the right remains inchoate it is as respects the wife under the absolute control of the legislature, which may, by general enactments, change, abridge, or even destroy it, as its judgment may dictate.2 'So,' says Wright, C. J., in Lucas v. Sawyer, just cited, 'the legislature may declare what acts of the wife shall amount to a relinquishment of her right of dower, or that her deed shall be effectual to bar the same.' Again he says: 'In measuring her rights we look to the law in force at the time of the husband's death, for it is this event which ripens or makes consummate the prior right, which, so long as it rested upon the marriage and seizure, was inchoate only. If there was no law in force at that time giving her the right, then it is extinguished. She cannot take under a law repealed prior to that time; and taking a law then existing, she must take it with its restrictions and limitations.' 'It was competent, therefore, for the legislature to say as respects all inchoate rights of dower, as it did say by the act of 1857, that deeds executed under a joint power of attorney from the husband and wife 'shall be binding;' and if binding, the claim of the wife here to dower is barred, for she joined in the power of attorney under which the deed was made.