Beach v. Beach
| Decision Date | 05 June 1913 |
| Citation | 141 N.W. 921,160 Iowa 346 |
| Parties | MRS. HELEN BEACH, Appellee, v. ROSA BEACH, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Lee District Court.--HON. H. BANK, JR., Judge.
ACTION for deceit, brought by plaintiff against defendant, who is her mother-in-law, in which she claimed that she was induced to enter into a marriage with defendant's son by reason of certain false and fraudulent representations regarding the ownership of certain land. Defendant pleaded a general denial, and on the issues so joined the case was tried to a jury, resulting in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff in the sum of $ 1,600, and defendant appeals.
Reversed.
E. C Weber, for appellant.
Herminghausen & Herminghausen, for appellee.
This is a novel and unusual action, and the petition upon which it was tried contains so succinct a statement of plaintiff's claim that we here quote from it as follows:
That she is the wife of August Beach, and was married to him about . . . 1907; that August Beach, her husband, had lived with defendant Rosa Beach, and her husband, now deceased, before their marriage, and was living with his mother on the farm at the time of the marriage between plaintiff and August Beach that the defendant, Rosa Beach, was solicitous to have her son, August Beach, marry, and in the name of her son, without his knowledge or consent, sought correspondence with the plaintiff, signing and using her son's name, and leading the plaintiff to believe that August Beach was the owner in fee simple of the farm on which he and the defendant, Rosa Beach, were at the time residing, viz., the N. 1/2, S.W. 1/4 section 25, township 69 north, range 5 west, in Lee county, Iowa which is of the reasonable value of $ 8,000; that the representations made in the said correspondence induced the plaintiff to accept said August Beach in marriage; that the said misrepresentations made by the said defendant, Rosa Beach, were false and fraudulent and tended to deceive, and did deceive, the plaintiff; that not until long after their marriage did she (the plaintiff) learn that her husband, August Beach, was not the owner of the farm that the said defendant, Rosa Beach, led her to believe belonged to him, but the same belonged to the said defendant, Rosa Beach, and that her husband had no interest therein; that the plaintiff by said false and fraudulent misrepresentations of the defendant, Rosa Beach, has been damaged in the sum of $ 5,000.
The defendant did not challenge the sufficiency of the pleading by demurrer, but answered, denying generally the allegations thereof, and further pleaded that plaintiff suffered no damages whatever by reason of the alleged representations. After the verdict was rendered, the defendant filed a motion in arrest for the reason that the petition did not state a cause of action. She also filed a motion for a new trial based upon many grounds, to some of which we shall refer during the course of the opinion.
Testimony was adduced in support of every allegation of the petition, and the first question to be considered is, Does the petition state a cause of action?
I. In law, marriage is a civil contract, requiring the consent of parties capable of entering into other contracts, except as otherwise declared. Code, section 3139; Brisbin v. Huntington, 128 Iowa 166, 103 N.W. 144. With its religious aspect or its sanctity, courts have nothing to do. The law of marriage, in so far as property interests are concerned, is founded on business principles, in which the utmost good faith is required from all the parties, and the least fraud in connection therewith is the subject of judicial cognizance.
In Piper v. Hoard, 107 N.Y. 73 (13 N.E. 626, 1 Am. St. Rep. 789), the Court of Appeals of New York said:
To say of plaintiff's mother, therefore, that she was too ready to marry a man because of the money he had or would necessarily leave to a child of the marriage, or that she was an adventuress, induced to marry solely by fraudulent representations as to the pecuniary condition of her husband, does not, as I have said, furnish the least reason for refusing relief to plaintiff if she be otherwise entitled to it. If her mother had not been induced to marry by any such pecuniary considerations, clearly no cause of action would exist. It is because such considerations were the moving ones, and were induced by the fraud of defendant, that the plaintiff bases her right of action. There are some anomalies in the law relative to contracts or negotiations having marriage for their consideration, and they are based upon considerations which obtain in no other contract. The family relations and their regulation are so much a matter of public policy that the law in relation to them is based on principles not applicable in other cases; and all business negotiations having marriage for their end are regarded in much the same light by our courts. Thus a particeps criminis in the fraud has been permitted to recover in his own name against one who was no more guilty than he, when the marriage had taken place by reason of such fraud.
Even though it be said that the parties take each other for better or for worse, it has quite frequently been held that a woman, who is deceived into entering into a void marriage with a man already married, may maintain an action against him for deceit. Morrill v. Palmer, 68 Vt. 1 (33 A. 829, 33 L. R. A. 411), and cases cited; Blossom v. Barrett, 37 N.Y. 434 (97 Am. Dec. 747); Pollock v. Sullivan, 53 Vt. 507 (38 Am. Rep. 702); Sears v. Wegner, 150 Mich. 388 (114 N.W. 224, 14 L. R. A. [N. S.] 819). So, too, it has been held that a man, who induced another to marry a girl by false representations that she was virtuous, when, in fact, she had been seduced by himself and had become pregnant, is liable for damages in an action by the husband for fraud. Kujek v. Goldman, 150 N.Y. 176 (44 N.E. 773, 34 L. R. A. 156, 55 Am. St. Rep. 670).
In the instant case the charge is that, by false and fraudulent representations as to her son's ownership of land, defendant deceived the plaintiff and induced her to marry her son, to her damage, etc.
In Neville v. Wilkinson, 1 Browne Ch. 543 (decided in 1782), the plaintiff was the individual who desired to marry his coplaintiff's daughter, and he and the defendant, who was an attorney to whom he owed a large amount of money, agreed that defendant should represent to the father that the debt was much less than in truth it was. He did so, and after marriage he brought an action on a bond which would have made the debt in excess of the amount represented, and the plaintiff, the particeps criminis, was permitted to succeed in an action brought by him and his father-in-law to compel the surrender of the bond. . . . The English courts have held that a person who, by acts or speech, represents property as belonging to the proposed husband, when the possession thereof, forms an inducement to the marriage, shall be bound to make good the thing in the manner represented. Such is the case of Montefiori v. Montefiori, 1 W. Bl. 363 (Easter term 1762, Mansfield, C. J.). The facts of the case were these: Montefiori being engaged in a marriage treaty, his brother Moses, to assist him in his designs and represent him as a man of fortune, gave him a note for a large sum of money as the balance of accounts between him and his brother Joseph, which balance he acknowledged to have in his hands, though in truth none existed. This note was shown by Joseph to the parents of the intended wife, and was an inducement to the marriage. After the marriage, Moses desired to reclaim the note so given without consideration, and the matter was referred to arbitration, and the arbitrators awarded the note to be given up, which Joseph refused to do, and the case then came up on motion for an attachment against Joseph for nonperformance of the award, and Joseph made a cross-motion to set aside the award. Chief Justice Mansfield held that where there were proposals of marriage, and third persons represented anything in a light different from the truth, even though by collusion with the husband, they shall be bound to make good the thing in the manner in which they represented it. It shall be as represented to be, and the husband alone shall be entitled to relief, as well as when the fortune has been specifically settled on the wife. Atherly, in his work on Marriage Settlements (27 Law Lib. chapter 34, marginal page 484), after citing the above case, says that the principle upon which the court proceeds in such cases, when the thing is not actually made the subject of the settlement, must be this, as he conceives: That, as the wife must be presumed to agree to the marriage as well in expectation of the present support which she and her children will receive from her husband as of the provision which he may have made for them after his death, a person who has been at all concerned in raising such expectation shall not be suffered in any wise to disappoint it.
See also, Piper v. Hoard, 107 N.Y. 73 (13 N.E. 626, 1 Am. St. Rep. 789), in which Peckham, J., said, among other things: ...
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