E T ROBINSON Vs. MRSRVRIGG

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's application in revision arising out of a suit to recover a sum of money. The facts which have given rise to the dispute between the parties can very briefly be stated as follows: The plaintiff is one Mrs. R. V. Rigg, carrying on business at Cawnpore. She instituted a suit against one Mrs. Robinson to recover a sum of Rs. 38-3-2. The allegation was that the plaintiff had supplied frocks, jharans, elastics and belts to Mrs. Robinson for her children to the value of the amount claimed. Later on, the husband of Mrs. Robinson was also made a party to the suit.

(2.) Mrs. Robinson did not contest the suit, but her husband Mr. Robinson did. The Court below framed an issue as to which of the two defendants was liable for the amount claimed, and it held that defendant 2, Mr. Robinson, was liable and Mrs. Robinson was not. The result was that the suit was decreed against Mr. Robinson and dismissed against his wife Mrs. Robinson. The defendant 2, Mr. Robinson, has preferred an application in revision to this Court. The judgment of the learned Judge of the Court below is somewhat brief and is not of much help to this Court in deciding the point in issue. It appears from the judgment of the Court below that the relations between the husband and wife were strained. Defendant 2 hadadvertised in newspapers that he would not be liable for his wife's debts. The purchases in question were made by Mrs. Robinson on 8 and 17 August 1934. It further appears that the plaintiff herself had not personally sold the articles to Mrs. Robinson but that a servant of hers had gone to the place of Mrs. Robinson on both occasions and had sold some articles, and Mrs. Robinson had signed the usual chits. The learned Judge of the Court below in his judgment says that it is proved that Mr. and Mrs. Robinson had three children. Therefore he came to the conclusion that as the wife had to provide the children and herself in the absence of her husband who used to go out and used to remain away the whole day on duty, so the husband was liable. In my opinion the learned Judge of the Court below did not approach the case from a correct point of view: nor did the plaintiff understand what she had to prove in a case of this description. It is true that at the time the articles were sold by a servant of the plaintiff to Mrs. Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were living together. It is further established that they had three children. But the learned Judge is altogether wrong in holding that simply because the husband of a wife is absent on duty during the daytime, the wife is entitled to pledge his credit. The first question which the plaintiff in a case like this should prove is whether the husband had given authority to the wife to pledge his credit. That authority may either be express or implied. There is no plea in the case before me that an express authority had been given by the husband to his wife to pledge his credit. The most that can be said in favour of the plaintiff is that from the circumstances of the case an implied authority may be inferred. But from the evidence which has been produced in the case, I am unable to hold that any implied authority can be inferred in favour of the plaintiff. The plaintiff had not any dealings with Mrs. Robinson from before. Before any decree could be passed in her favour she had to establish that she gave credit to the wife believing that Mrs. Robinson had an implied authority to pledge the credit of her husband. One way of establishing this point was to prove that Mrs. Robinson whilst she was living with her husband and children was the manager who managed the family affairs. If any evidence on that point had been given on behalf of the plaintiff, then she would have been justified in asking the Court to draw the inference of implied authority.

(3.) But in the case before me no such evidence has been given. Mrs. Robinson has not been even examined as a witness. We have no evidence on behalf of the plaintiff to explain as to why it became necessary for Mrs. Robinson to purchase articles from the plaintiff on credit. On the other hand, defendant 2, Mr. Robinson, went into the witness-box and he stated that as his wife was a very extravagant woman, he had been managing the affairs of the family himself and had supplied to his wife all the necessities of life and that there was no reason for her to purchase anything on credit. It has to be remembered that Mr. Robinson is an interested witness and his evidence has to be accepted with caution. But his evidence remains unrebutted. The only way in which the plaintiff could have rebutted that evidence was to have produced Mrs. Robinson in evidence, and then the Court would have been in a position to determine as to which of the two was telling the truth. As it is, we have only an ex parte statement of defendant 2 and, as there was no other evidence, I see no reason why the statement of Mr. Robinson on this point should not be believed. In Debenham V/s. Mellon (1881) 6 AC 24, it was held by the House of Lords that where the husband neither does, nor assents to, any act to show that he has held out his wife as his agent, to pledge his credit for goods supplied on her orders, the question whether she bears that character must be examined upon the circumstances of the case and that question is one of fact. Their Lordships further go on to say that the management of the husband's house would raise a presumption of agency as to matters necessarily connected with that management, which might not be got rid of by a mere private arrangement between husband and wife. At one place in their Lordships judgment their Lordships at p. 31 observe: ...On that point, I think it enough to say that, according to all the authorities, there is no such mandate in law from the facts of marriage only, except in the particular case of necessity; a necessity which may arise, when the husband has deserted the wife, or has by his conduct compelled her to live apart from him, without properly providing for her - but not when the husband and wife are living together, and when the wife is properly maintained , because there is, in that state of circumstances, no prima facie evidence that the husband is neglecting to discharge his necessary duty, or that there is any necessary occasion for the wife to run him into debt, for the purpose of keeping herself alive, or supplying herself with lodging or clothing.