HUSBAND NOT LIABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 66, 19 March 1930, Page 12

HUSBAND NOT LIABLE.

SEPARATED WIFE'S DEBT.

FEES OF NURSING HOME. NO AUTHORITY TO PLEDGE. . (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. When Mrs. Christian Jensen entered a rest home conducted by C. E. Wise she had been living apart from her husband for over a year. She incurred a debt of £106 16/, but Mr. E. Page, S.M., to-day ruled that her husband is not liable for payment. The magistrate said that Jensen had allotted his wife an allowance as a permanent provision during their separation. "Where a wife yves apart with her' husband's consent, the question whether she has authority to pledge his credit depends upon she is adequately provided for, regard being had to the means and position of her husband. Where a wife lives apart contrary to her husband's wishes, he having offered to provide for her if she "would return, he is not liable even for necessaries supplied to her. - "In the present case, assuming that it were held that the defendant's wife was | living apart with his consent, I consider that, having regard to his means and position, the financial provision made for her was adequate, and she had therefore no authority to pledge his credit. For this reason the claim must fail. "There are, I think, other grounds equally fatal to the plaintiff's claim. In order that a husband should be liable for a debt incurred by his wife, it must appear that it was his credit that was pledged, not her own. No evidence has been called to prove this. A further ground has reference to the extent to which a- husband can in any event be held liable. The presumed authority to pledge his credit is confined to necessaries suitable to the husband's style of living. I do not think that a prolonged stay-in a nursing home at £6 6/ a week when other facilities (for example, the public hospital), at a cost more within the compass .of the defendant's income, were available, can be held to have been necessary." . "