Barnes v. Starr Ex Rel. Edwards

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. There are three appeals on the record now before ns, and they are from three separate judgments, rendered iu the Baltimore City Court, against the appellant, the defendant in the court below. The first judgment was rendered in a suit instituted by the plaintiff, Scott M. Starr, to the use of Malcolm Edwards, against the defendant, to1 recover the sum of $223.20, being for the burial expenses ox Ada Y. Barnes, the wife of the defendant. The second suit was instituted to recover the sum of' $373.89' being for board, nursing and services rendered the wife, while sick and a patient in the Franklin Square Hospital of Baltimore City.

The third suit was brought to recover the sum of $300 for medical and professional services and attendance rendered the wife by Dr. J. Walker Thomas, in which a judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff for the sum claimed. The second and third suits were instituted, it will he seen, by the plaintiffs, for the use of Malcolm Edwards-, who had, as iu the first suit, paid the money to the plaintiff, and held an assignment for the debt as the cause of action in each one of the suits. The facts of the ease, on each appeal, are undisputed and, for the purposes of the case, are practically admitted, so> the issue in each case is one of law, and not of fact. ²²⁰ At the trial of the case, the defendant reserved two exceptions, one to the ruling; of the court in refusing to strike out all the evidence offered by the plaintiff, as set out in the first bill of exception, and the second exception to the refusal of-the court to grant the defendant’s prayers presented in each ■case. There was clearly no error in the ruling of the court in overruling the motion to strike out the plaintiff’s testimony in each case.

This testimony was essential and admissible to establish the plaintiff’s right of recovery in each case, and formed the basis of the plaintiff’s suits. The law controlling the husband’s liability for funeral expenses, and for medical attention and service to the wife in her last illness, is well settled in this State. In Willis v. Jones, 57 Md. 362 , the Court held that the husband is1 chargeable with the funeral expenses of the wife and was bound to pay them, but they constitute no charge upon the wife’s separate estate. In Stonesifer v. Shriver, 100 Md. 30 , the Court said: “At common law, the legal existence and identity of the wife was merged in that of the husband who became entitled to hold and to reduce into his possession all her personal estate, and as a consequence the law cast upon him the duty of supplying her with the necessities suitable to their station in life.

The duty of a husband to bury his wife in a suitable manner is involved in the obligation to maintain her while living, and rests also upon a due regard for the decencies of life, and the health of the public. It has been generally held, where the subject has been considered by the courts of this country, that statutes creating the wife’s statutory estate do not absolve the husband from his common law obligation to provide suitable bn rial for the wife, and that he is not entitled to any credit on the