Commonwealth v. Shaman.

• Decision Date: 29 February 1916
• Citation: 223 Mass. 62
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. HARRY SHAMAN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

223 Mass. 62

COMMONWEALTH v. HARRY SHAMAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

February 29, 1916

January 10, 1916.

Present: RUGG, C.

J., BRALEY, DE COURCY, CROSBY, & PIERCE, JJ.

Non-support. Husband and Wife. Judgment.

It is no defence to a complaint under St. 1911, c. 456, Section 1, for refusing to provide for the support and maintenance of the complainant as the defendant's wife, that the defendant was induced to marry the complainant by her false representations that she was chaste.

A decree dismissing a libel by a husband under R.L.c. 151, Section 11, for annulling his marriage establishes the status of husband and wife and cannot be attacked collaterally by the husband in his attempted defence to a complaint against him under St 1911, c. 456, Section 1, for refusing to provide for the support of his wife.

The case was submitted on briefs.

J. S. Spencer &amp N.

Golden, for the defendant.

A. C. Webber Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

BRALEY, J. The St of 1911, c. 456, Section 1, for the violation of which the defendant has been convicted, provides, that "any husband who unreasonably neglects or refuses to provide for the support and maintenance of his wife or minor child or children . . . shall be guilty of a crime, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment."

The defendant contends, the conviction should be reversed because his offer of proof, that he was induced to marry the complainant through her false representations that she was chaste, was erroneously excluded. But, having been content to take her word, the defendant made no preliminary investigation, and her mere antenuptial unchastity furnished no ground for annulment of the marriage, which was valid, even if the parties have never lived together as husband and wife. Reynolds v. Reynolds, 3 Allen, 605, 608. Franklin v Franklin, 154 Mass. 515 .

The decree moreover dismissing the defendant's libel for annulling the marriage brought under R.L.c. 151, Section 11, ^[*] established the status of husband and wife and cannot be attacked collaterally. Coe v. Hill, 201 Mass. 15 . Weld v. Clarke, 209 Mass. 9 , 12.

The judge ^[*] therefore correctly ruled, that only evidence of her conduct since the marriage was admissible in justification of the defendant's failure to support the complainant.

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