Sometimes I see notices similar (if not verbatim) to the above in the legal notices section of a US newspaper - it is then followed by someone’s personal details.
What does giving this notice do for someone? It stands to reason that it must have some legal purpose (or purported legal purpose), or else people would not spend money to publish in a section almost nobody reads.
A friend and I were talking about this - I speculated that it had something to do with identity theft victims giving notice of their victim status (perhaps to aid in prosecution if the id thief continues to charge in the name, as a claim of consent would be weaker, or perhaps it is to let potential creditors beware - “hey, if someone wants credit and claims to be me, you’d better be pretty sure it’s me, cuz if it’s not me, I’m not responsible for what happens, and I’m not paying”). She thought it had something to do with pending divorces. I suppose if the divorce thing is correct, the notice is intended to stop the creation of joint debts, etc. - so as to prevent your spouse from running up huge bills before your divorce goes through, leaving you responsible as a joint debtor. She said that the legal utility of this statement is dubious.
Neither of us are attorneys and this obviously is not a request for legal advice.
I know at one time it was a standard practice, sort of a pre-emptive strike, when a married couple was splitting up, and “A” didn’t want to be saddled with debts incurred by “B” in “A’s” name. I don’t think it had any direct legal effect, but could be used later to document “A’s” intentions and seriousness.
It’s giving legal notice that the person who contracted for the ad will no longer be responsible for bills incurred by someone else, for whose debts he or she had previously had in some way felt responsible. The most common usage is when a couple breaks up: the merchant who may have extend the notice-maker’s spouse credit expecting payment from the notice-maker has now been given notice to the contrary. It of course does not bind as against a court judgment, but it does show intent and provides evidence of an effort to give persons who might be harmed proper notice.
I have a legal self-help book from 1970. Men who were seperating or divorcing their wives used to have to publish a notice in the local papers to stop local merchants from extending credit to their wives (& leaving the husband liable for the bill). This was when it was next to impossible for married women to get credit on their own.
I used to have a 40’s-50’s era etiquette book, and while I don’t recall the title or author I do remember there being a section on disolution of marriage and how both parties should behave. For one thing, angry letters should not be written on old hotel stationery, and for another, those unfortunate newspaper notices were in very poor taste.
This is it. At the newspaper where I used to work, people – mostly men, but some women too – were constantly calling and coming in to place these ads. They often would ask for advice, as if the staff were qualified (and interested) to give it. Some staffers cared enough to ask the advertisers if they were placing the ads on the advice of their lawyers, but of course it always turned out they thought the ads were their own idea.
What was really funny was that they thought they could be billed for the ads. Yeah, right.
It’s similar to the “ignorance of the law” doctrine. If a fact is published in a newspaper as an official notice, any person can be held to be aware of it as a matter of public record, and someone who grants crediit to a person on the assumption that you will be responsible for it can be shown to be ignorant of the fact that you have absolved yourself of any such responsibility.
In fact, it probably had no power, but creditors faced with that defense were often unwilling to risk their day in court.
The fact is that most states are community property states, and a married couple is considered jointly responsible for all their liabilities as long as they are legally married. However, they are not necessarily equally responsible, and a divorce settlement judge may (butr doesn’t have to) take such a newspaper notice into account in dividing the liabilities of a divorcing couple.
Reminds me a bit of some of those stories I hear about wacky US tax “protesters” (the ones that insist their name is misspelled when in all-caps, etc). Sounds about their speed.
My understanding was that it was for marraige breakups, and occasionally other such diassociations like kicking the adult kids out of the house, or dissolution of a business partnership. Believe it or not, once upon a time, especially in small towns, a lot of merchants would allow credit for apparently creditworthy customers, and many debts were settled with personal cheques - i.e. a lot of commerce was done on faith.
The newspaper ad was due to the fact that publishing a notice in a widely circulated paper (they used to be, too) was the equivalent of making sure everyone knew - sort of like posting a notice in the town square.
The same sort of notices were IIRC required for other legal business, like bankruptcy and estate settlement announcements?
