Porter v. Caylor
Porter v. Caylor
Opinion of the Court
On July 26, 1893, the bond and mortgage sued on in this case were executed by the appel
In pursuance of said agreement and the execution of the bond and mortgage,the bastardy proceedings were dismissed and the parties became husband and wife. They lived together until September of the same year; soon after which, it is alleged, the conditions of the bond were violated, and this action was brought to recover the damages provided for in the bond and for the foreclosure of the mortgage. The appellant, Porter, appeared for the appellant, Pearl M. Caylor, as trustee and next friend; the record showing that at the time she became pregnant by the act of the appellee, Caylor, as charged, she was as yet but a school girl and not fifteen years of age.
The cause was submitted to the court for trial, and there was a special finding of the facts with conclusions of law. The court found the facts in issue substantially as stated in the complaint: That Pearl M. Phipps, now Caylor, was at the date of the bond and
We do not think the conclusions of law were justified by the findings. One of the facts found is an intimation that the wife abandoned her husband; and we presume that it was upon this chiefly that the conclusions of law were based. The finding in question is rather a conclusion of fact, and is itself inconsistent with the facts in issue and expressly found by the court. Two weeks after their marriage the husband communicated a loathsome disease to his wife, from which she continuously suffered thereafter. The
“The husband’s cruelty,” says Mr. Bishop, Marriage and Divorce (6th ed.), section 741, “is aggravated by the woman’s being in pregnancy. Also,by her being of advanced age; [or, we might add, of tender age], for ‘there may be relative cruelty, and what is tolerable by one may not be by another.’ ” Yet it is quite impossible to conceive that the particular cruelty indulged in in this case could be tolerable by any one. In this case, too, not only the suffering of the mother, but the premature birth and speedy death of the child were direct results of this cruelty. The wife did not desert the husband. His conduct drove her forth.
As said in the vigorous language of Judge Lotz, in Carr v. Carr, 6 Ind. App. 377, “Although the evidence in this case shows that the wife left the defendant, it was under such circumstances that made him, and not her, the deserter.” And the learned judge continues: “His conduct was not only vile, but it was infamous. It was bad enough for him to violate his marital vows, but when followed up by inoculating the wife with a loathsome disease, the depths of infamy had been sounded. The law does not require that the wife shall abase herself to the extent of condoning the adulterous conduct of the husband, much less is she required to jeopardize her health and life in order that she may receive food, raiment and shelter from his iniquitous hand. She is entitled to enjoy his good fortunes, and bound to share his misfortunes, but she
“For a husband knowingly to communicate venereal disease to his wife,” says Mr. Bishop, in the work already cited, section 735, “is adequate legal cruelty; and, in aid of the necessary proofs of knowledge, the presumption will be, that he was aware of his own diseased condition and the danger of infection.” See also definition of cruelty as to husband and wife, as quoted from the same text writer by Judge Worden in Small v. Small, 57 Ind. 568.
That the conditions of the bond in suit were violated, and that the appellants were entitled to recover, there can be no doubt. A case in form and substance much like the case at bar, and in which the acts of the husband, in the violation of the conditions of the bond given his wife, were less reprehensible, was that of Stanley v. Montgomery, 102 Ind. 102, appealed for the second time and decided in favor of the wife in Stanley v. Stanley, 112 Ind. 143.
The judgment is reversed, with instructions to the court to restate its conclusions of law and to enter judgment for the appellants.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Porter, Trustee v. Caylor
- Status
- Published