Callis v. Merrieweather

• Decision Date: 12 January 1904
• Parties: CALLIS v. MERRIEWEATHER.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

57 A. 201

98 Md. 361

CALLIS v. MERRIEWEATHER.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 12, 1904

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; J. Upshur Dennis, Judge.

Action by William Merrieweather against Augustus B. Callis. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and FOWLER, BRISCOE, BOYD, SCHMUCKER and JONES, JJ.

George M. Lane, for appellant.

Francis A. Buschman, for appellee.

JONES J.

The appeal in this case is from a judgment obtained in the court below by the appellee against the appellant upon the cause of action which the narr. in the case sets out as follows Ë" For that on the 12th day of November, 1879, the plaintiff [appellee here] intermarried with Sallie W Merrieweather, and that up to the time of committing the wrongs alleged herein have been living together as man and wife. And the plaintiff alleges that the defendant [[appellant here], the said Augustus B. Callis, contrived and wrongfully intended to deprive him of the comfort, society aid, and assistance of the said Sallie W. Merrieweather, the wife of the plaintiff, and to alienate her affections for him, unlawfully and unjustly gained the affections of his said wife, whereby the plaintiff was forced to leave and abandon her, whereby the said plaintiff lost the comfort company, society, aid, and assistance of his said wife, and her affections for the plaintiff were wholly alienated and destroyed.Ë" The narr. is awkwardly constructed, but the substance and meaning of its allegations are sufficiently plain. At the trial of the case no question appears to have arisen upon the pleadings or upon offers of evidence. At the conclusion of the evidence the appellee (plaintiff below) offered for the approval of the court three instructions to the jury, all of which were granted. The appellant (defendant below) offered five, of which the first was refused, the second withdrawn, and the third, fourth, and fifth were granted by the court. The prayer which was refused (the first) asked that the jury be instructed Ë" that there is no evidence legally sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to recover, and their verdict must be for the defendant.Ë" To the granting of appellee's prayers, and each of them, and the rejection of the appellant's first prayer, the appellant excepted. This is the single exception presented for the consideration of this court, and this, we think, is free from difficulty. The record presents no question that makes it necessary or appropriate to go into a general discussion of the law applicable to the class of actions to which the one here under consideration belongs. We have said in Wolf v. Frank, 92 Md. 138, 48 A. 132, 52 L.R.A. 102: Ë" There has been but little, if any, difference of opinion as to the right of a husband to sue for what is termed 'the loss of consortium'--that is the loss of his wife's society, affection, and assistance--and when any one, by the alienation of her affections, deprives him of his conjugal rights, he is liable to respond in damages.Ë" We find it stated in Cooley on Torts, 225 (marg.): Ë" The action for seducing the wife away from the husband is by no means confined to the case of improper and adulterous relations, but it extends to all cases of wrongful interference in the family affairs of others, whereby the wife is induced to leave the husband, or to so conduct herself that the comfort of the married life is destroyed.Ë" (The italics are ours.) In support of the text just quoted reference may be had to Heermance v. James, 47 Barb. 123, and to Rinehalt v. Bills, 82 Mo. 534, 52 Am.Rep. 385. Both the narr. and the evidence here bring this case within the law as thus laid down--the narr. in its allegation of fact, and the evidence in its tendency to prove the allegation of fact in the narr. There was evidence to the effect that the appellant was the pastor in charge...