AUTHORITY OF WIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20517, 19 March 1930, Page 17

AUTHORITY OF WIFE.

HUSBAND'S CREDIT PLEDGED. PAIR LIVING SEPARATELY. COURT DEFINES POSITION. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Tuesday. The extent of the authority of a *.vife to pledge her husband's credit was dealt with by Mr, E. Page, S.M., in a judgment which he delivered in the Magistrate's Court to-day. The case was one in which C. E. Wise claimed £lO6 16s from Christain Jensen, for hospital fees incurred while the defendant's wife was being nursed in the plaintiff's rest home. "Where husband and wife arc living together the wife is presumed to have authority to pledge his credit for necessaries suitable to their style of living," said Mr. Page. "A mere temporary absence from the marital home would not, I think, destroy the authority. "Here, however, the wife had left her husband for over a year before incurring this debt, and she had evinced no intention of returning to him. He had for several months made efforts to get her to return, and, these having failed, he had allotted her an allowance as a permanent provision during their separation. "In my opinion the defendant and his wife cannot be said to have been living together at the time this debt was incurred. Where a wife lives apart with her husband's consent, the question whether she has authority to pledge his credit depends on whether 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, hj& 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 tljat, 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 6s 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 a necessary."