Engel v. Conti

• Decision Date: 07 November 1905
• Citation: 62 A. 210,78 Conn. 351
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: ENGEL v. CONTI.

62 A. 210

78 Conn. 351

ENGEL

v. CONTI.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Nov. 7, 1905.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edwin B. Gager, Judge.

Action by Herman Engel against Angelo Conti. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Joseph P. Tuttle, for appellant Benedict M. Holden, for appellee.

BALDWIN, J. The complaint alleged that the affection of the plaintiff's wife for him had been wholly destroyed, and that he had wholly lost her society. In proof of this, he testified at the trial that he had not lived with her or had any connection with her during the preceding eight months. On cross-examination he stated that within two weeks he had gone with her one evening from Hartford (where each then resided) to the neighboring city of New Britain, where they spent the night at a hotel in the same bedroom; she sleeping in the bed, and he on the floor, and not with her. Having stated on redirect examination that they talked together while in the hotel, he was asked what was said by each. This question was objected to, but admitted; and in reply he testified that she said that she had come to him for the last time, that the defendant in the present action wanted to settle it, that she wanted him to drop it, that if he did the defendant would drop one which he had brought against the plaintiff, that she did not want to go to court, and that there was no use in proving things that happened a year ago, and also asked who his witnesses were, to all of whicli he replied that he had supposed she wanted to ask him to live with her again, and not to talk about this case, and that he should insist upon its trial. Upon recross-examination he testified, among other things, that he went to New Britain at her solicitation and expense, that she told him that she wanted to talk to him in the cars while going there, that she induced him to go to the room at the hotel by pretending to be ill, and that neither undressed during the night.

The question admitted on the redirect examination was a proper one. In cross-examination the plaintiff had admitted being in his wife's society at a time when in his complaint he had asserted that he was totally deprived of it. He had testified that, on this occasion, they had spent the night in a bedroom containing only one bed, and his accompanying assertion that she occupied it alone, if left without further support or explanation, would not have been likely to weigh much with the Jury. This explanation his counsel sought to elicit by showing what on this occasion was said by him to his wife, and by her to him. The character of this conversation would naturally tend to make the truth of his testimony that he had slept upon the floor either more or less probable. An appropriate way to characterize it was to put before the jury the language used. His wife and he had been on the night in question, in an equivocal situation. Was their conversation the expression of mutual affection, or did it show her bent on opposing his interests and endeavoring to promote those of the defendant? The subject of the investigation in the cause on trial was the relations of this...