Jons v. Campbell
Jons v. Campbell
Opinion of the Court
I. The facts out of which, the action arose are as follows: On the eighteenth day of
As we have said, it is conceded that the note was •given because of the legal proceedings then commenced •against the plaintiff’s husband. The time at which it was given strongly indicates that it was the purpose to make the plaintiff a creditor of her husband in view of the litigation against him. The woman Catherine Vogt was for a long time an employe at the house of the plaintiff and her husband, and he at the same time had hired men. Long before this note was given, the plaintiff knew that the girl and the hired men had sexual intercourse in her house. Mathias Jons testified thereto •as follows:
“Q. Now, you say this girl had been intimate with some other fellows, do you? Now, who were they? A. There were three or four of them. Differ■ent ones.
“Q. How do you know? A. Me and my wife heard 'them go to bed with her two or three times. I had a cousin that worked for me, and we heard them go to bed together two or three times.
“Q. Didn’t make any objection to it, you or she? A. I didn’t make any.
“Q. You don’t know of your wife making any ■objection to it, do you? A. Yes, I do.
“Q. What objection did she make? A. She thought :it was pretty loose for a girl to go to bed with a man.
“Q. Did she talk so with you? A. Yes, sir.
*560 “Q. This girl worked there for you in your family t A. Yes, sir.
UQ. How long? A. Three or four months, I think..
“Q. But these other fellows worked there at that time? A. Yes.
“Q. You kept the men and the girl just the same?A. They were good people to work.”
In answer to a question as to whether the plaintiff knew that her husband had committed adultery, he testified as follows: “Oh, she knowed I had. She. knowed I had something to do with her.”
We think the fair preponderance of the evidence is to the effect that the note was not given to condone the offense of. adultery, but that it was merely to lay the foundation for a claim to the property in view of the, legal embarrassments then surrounding the husband of the plaintiff. The whole case really depends upon the testimony of the husband. His testimony was, twice taken. In a deposition taken long before the trial he testified positively that he had never at any time been guilty of adultery with Catherine Yogt. In his second examination as a witness he testified that he had sexual intercourse with her, and gave the time and places of the occurrences. Under all the facts disclosed in evidence, we do not believe that the plaintiff exacted the note because she contemplated a separation and a divorce from an adulterous husband. Taking into consideration the time at which the note was executed with reference to the prosecutions against the husband, and. the fact that the land in controversy was not conveyed to the plaintiff until the action of the defendant Sarah Campbell was commenced, and the other facts and circumstances disclosed in the record, we have no hesitancy in holding that the conveyance was void as to creditors. And it sufficiently appears that Mathias Jons was insolvent when he made the conveyance of' the land in controversy to the plaintiff, or at least that ho was then contemplating insolvency. After. that
II. It is claimed in behalf of the plaintiff that part of the costs of the abstract should be taxed to the
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Christina Jons v. Sarah Campbell
- Cited By
- 1 case
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- Published