Anderson v. Smith

Bartol, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This suit was instituted by the appellant to recover a sum due from the wife of the appellee for board and necessaries furnished to her before her marriage, and while she was a minor. It appears. from the proof that the wife of the appellee when a minor was placed by her father in the house of the appellant to board and be cared for by his family. The father died in January, 1867, and had paid for his daughter’s board to that time, éxcept a few hundred dollars balance, which was claimed by the appellant from his estate.

After his death'the young lady continued to board with the appellant, till her marriage to the appellee, which took place when she was about eighteen years old. The amount claimed in this suit is for her board and necessaries, furnished to her after the death of her father, at her request and upon her promise to pay for them. The proof is further that before her marriage she recognized her indebtedness and promised to pay it, and that the appellee since his marriage admitted to the appellant the correctness of the account and said he would have to pay it, and on one occasion offered to settle the bill, if he, the appellant, would make some trifling deductions. Upon this evidence the plaintiff below offered one prayer, which was rejected, and the Court gave an instruction to the jury to the following effect: If they should find from the evidence that the wife of the defendant, was placed by her father in the family of the plaintiff to board when she was an infant, under the age of ⁴⁶⁷ twenty-one and before her marriage, and that her father paid for her board up to the time of Ins death, and that he was a man