Crichton v. Crichton

• Decision Date: 04 December 1888
• Citation: 40 N.W. 638,73 Wis. 59
• Parties: CRICHTON v. CRICHTON.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

73 Wis. 59

40 N.W. 638

CRICHTON

v.CRICHTON.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

December 4, 1888.

Appeal from circuit court, Rock county; BENNETT, Judge.

Action for divorce brought by Ann D. Crichton against her husband, John Crichton. Plaintiff appeals from a judgment denying the divorce.William Street, for appellant.

John Winans, for respondent.

LYON, J.

The action is for a divorce brought by the plaintiff against the defendant, her husband. The alleged grounds for the divorce are cruel and inhuman treatment and habitual drunkenness. This appeal is taken by the plaintiff from a judgment in the circuit court denying the divorce. The question to be determined is whether either of the alleged grounds is established by the proofs. The principal witnesses who testified on behalf of the plaintiff are herself and three adult children of the parties, two daughters and a son. These are the only surviving children of the marriage. The parties were married in 1856, and have resided in Rock county ever since. The testimony of the plaintiff and of the three children of the parties is to the effect that the defendant is, and has been for several years past, an habitual drunkard, and that when intoxicated he is violent, profane, and grossly indecent in his language and conduct; that at numerous times during the past few years he has called his wife a bitch and a whore, accusing her, without any apparent grounds therefor, with having illicit sexual intercourse with several men, using at the same time very profane language, and has also many times in her presence applied the same vile epithet to their daughters; that during those years he has frequently threatened to take the life of his wife; that once, when intoxicated, he was so violent that his wife was compelled to leave their room, going to the room of their daughters, where he followed her, broke open the door, and brandished a butcher-knife, threatening to kill her, and asking her to kill him with it; that on one occasion a drunken fellow was stopping at their house, the wife was in bed upstairs, and he told the fellow to go up there, and used language which conveyed to his wife and children the idea that he desired him to go to bed with her, saying that the old woman was good enough for him; one of the daughters met the fellow at the top of the stairs, and compelled him to return; that a short time before she left her husband, which was in July, 1885, he pointed a pistol at their son, in her presence, and menaced him with death; that on several occasions he pushed her about in anger, handling her roughly, the last time shortly before she left him; in short, that his conduct towards his wife was so outrageously brutal and inhuman that it became impossible for her longer to live with him as his wife. The foregoing is but an outline of the testimony of the wife and children, but the statement is sufficient to show the manner in which, as they testified, he habitually treated her. Some other testimony was given on the trial by other witnesses, in behalf of the plaintiff, which tends to corroborate some of the statements of herself and children. It is not necessary to state here this corroborating testimony.

If the testimony of the plaintiff and the three children of the parties is true, it proves a case of cruel and inhuman treatment of the plaintiff by her husband, within the meaning of the statute. Rev. St. § 2356, subd. 5. This is so within the somewhat restricted rule of Johnson v. Johnson, 4 Wis. 135; for surely the conduct of the defendant, as testified to by his wife and children, rendered it unsafe and improper for his wife to live and cohabit with him. This is the test of the statutory offense laid down in that case. A broader rule (and, in my opinion, the better rule) on the subject is laid down in Freeman v. Freeman, 31 Wis. 235, by DIXON, C. J. It is there said: “Everybody knows that the conduct of the husband towards the wife may be such, even without any personal violence, actual or threatened, as to render her married state intolerable, and, from mere mental suffering and physical debility so produced, to make it utterly impossible for...