Edgell v. Francis

• Decision Date: 16 June 1887
• Citation: 33 N.W. 501,66 Mich. 303
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: EDGELL v. FRANCIS.

33 N.W. 501

66 Mich. 303

EDGELL v. FRANCIS.

Supreme Court of Michigan

June 16, 1887

Error to circuit court, Eaton county.

Huggett & Smith, for defendant in error.

H.F Pennington, for plaintiff in error.

CAMPBELL C.J.

Plaintiff sued defendant, his father-in-law, for depriving him of the company of his wife and child, and detaining them, by persuasion and other means, from returning to him. The plaintiff and his wife were married in March, 1883, and about 10 months after their marriage a child was born to them while they were keeping house together in the township of Roxand, Eaton county. Defendant was living in the vicinity and on March 7, 1884, he and his wife took plaintiff's wife and child home with them, ostensibly on a visit, and she never came back. The claim of the plaintiff was that defendant got and kept his wife away from him with the purpose of breaking up their domestic relations. The jury found for plaintiff a verdict for $200. Defendant brings error.

No charges were asked or given, and the case was put to the jury upon the testimony. All the exceptions are to the reception of testimony. This is of two kinds, including, more or less statements of plaintiff's wife indicating the influence exerted over her, and also testimony concerning the sayings and doings of defendant's wife, not in his presence. A part of the talk of plaintiff's wife does not appear very plainly to have been outside of the presence of her parents, and it is not easy to find what part was so held; but some of it was. All that was excepted to consisted of her statements concerning the reasons why she stayed with her parents, and her feelings and wishes; and a warning to plaintiff against venturing at her father's on one occasion. This is undoubtedly hearsay, but it is claimed to be one of the exceptions to the rule of exclusion relating to what are usually called res gestae, or accompanying acts and circumstances which cannot be well understood without such testimony.

This case differs from the usual action for seduction in the important particulars that the mischief is not done by the removal of the wife, or by destroying by one act the domestic peace. Here the mischief is a continuing one, going on from day to day, and becoming worse with the delay. The principles, therefore, which always allowed inquiry into the wife's feelings and conduct prior to and at the time of the seduction, must permit such inquiry during the whole period of alienation. The law cannot very well shut out what to every intelligent person must appear significant and free from any danger of fabrication and falsehood. Most of this evidence is explanatory of the wife's residence with...