Dailey v. Frey

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Dailey v. Frey, 206 Pa. 227 (Pa. 1903)
55 A. 962; 1903 Pa. LEXIS 684
Brown, Fell, Mestrezat, Mitchell, Potter

Dailey v. Frey

Opinion of the Court

Per Curiam,

To a bill for partition of lands formerly of one Bradley between plaintiff’s ward, a granddaughter of Bradley, and defendant, a daughter, the answer denied the legitimacy of the plaintiff. This was equivalent to a plea of non tenent insimul, and there being no other facts in dispute the judge, apparently by agreement, proceeded to determine the case on this single issue.

*230The defendant denied plaintiff’s legitimacy on two grounds, first that her parents had never been married, and secondly that at the time of the alleged marriage the mother was the wife of another man. All the assignments of error go to the admission and weight of the evidence on these two points. Without discussing them in detail it is sufficient to §ay first that there was evidence enough to support the finding of a marriage between plaintiff’s parents. The certificate of marriage, though not in itself evidence of that fact, was offered in connection with testimony that it was procured from the custody of plaintiff’s father and claimed by him as the certificate of his own marriage. It was therefore within the principle of Hill v. Hill’s Adm., 32 Pa. 511, and was admissible as tending to show the identity of the parties notwithstanding the variation in the name.

The second question is more difficult. There was considerable evidence of a previous marriage. But opposed to it was the evidence of the reception of the parents of the appellee by her mother’s family as married, the acknowledgment of the husband and the treatment of the appellee from her birth as a legitimate child, the entire absence of any appearance or question of the alleged first husband during the whole life of the alleged wife, the possibility of confusion as to the two Bradley families, and finally the presumption in favor of innocence as to the alleged bigamy. The judge weighing all the evidence found the marriage of appellee’s parents to be valid, and we have not been convinced that he was in error.

Judgment affirmed.

Reference

Cited By
3 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
Marriage — Evidence—Legitimacy— Partition. On a bill for partition where the issue is the marriage of plaintiff’s parents, a certificate of marriage is admissible as evidence of identity of parties, when offered in connection with testimony that it was produced from the custody of plaintiff’s father and claimed by him as the certificate of his own marriage, and this is the case although the name of plaintiff’s father was Sharpe, and the name mentioned in the certificate was Shaw. On a bill for partition where the plaintiff’s legitimacy is denied on the ground of a prior marriage of her mother, a finding in favor of plaintiff will be sustained where the evidence of a previous marriage had opposed to it the evidence of the reception of the parents of the plaintiff by her mother’s family as married, the acknowledgment of the husband and the treatment of the plaintiff from her birth as a legitimate child, the entire absence of any appearance or question of the alleged first husband during the whole life of the alleged wife, the possibility of confusion as to two families of the same name, and finally the presumption in favor of innocence of the alleged bigamy.