Ex parte Young

• Decision Date: 26 June 1924
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 998.
• Citation: 101 So. 51,211 Ala. 508
• Parties: EX PARTE YOUNG. v. WOODWARD IRON CO. YOUNG
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

101 So. 51

211 Ala. 508

EX PARTE YOUNG.

YOUNG v. WOODWARD IRON CO.

6 Div. 998.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 26, 1924

Petition of Lela B. Young for certiorari to the circuit court of Jefferson county (Bessemer division) to review the judgment and findings of said court in a proceeding by petitioner against the Woodward Iron Company under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Writ granted; reversed and remanded.

Beddow & Oberdorfer, of Birmingham, for appellant.

Huey &amp Welch, of Bessemer, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

The plaintiff Lela B. Young, claims compensation under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Gen. Acts 1919, p. 206), for the death of her alleged husband, Rich Young, on October 6, 1922, by an accident in the course of his employment and arising therefrom.

Defendant denied plaintiff's alleged relationship to the deceased and the decision of the trial court denying her relationship and her right to compensation turned upon the court's finding of fact that Rich Young was legally married to Luvenia Johnson about the year 1905, and had never been divorced from her, she still surviving.

The evidence in the record exposes to view a curious narrative of matrimonial instability and change. Rich Young, the deceased employé, was married to the plaintiff on September 28, 1922 by a minister authorized thereto under a regular license. But in February, 1905, Rich Young was married to Luvenia Threadgill by religious ceremony under a regular license. In March, 1900, however, the said Luvenia had married Will Bolling or Bolden, with whom she lived about three years before she left him. As the wife of Rich Young, she lived with him until 1916, when she left Young, and, according to the great weight of the testimony, resumed the marital relation with Bolling for a short while. Bolling died in 1921, and about that time Luvenia Threadgill-Bolling-Young-Bolling contracted her third and last matrimonial alliance, by a ceremonial marriage to the Rev. Johnson, her present husband.

The only testimony in the record tending to show the absence of divorce decrees in favor of or against any of these various marriage participants, is the statement of Luvenia Bolling-Young-Johnson:

"I don't know anything about any divorce against any of my husbands. I don't know of any divorce proceedings by me or by any of my husbands."

Appellant plaintiff below, invokes the prima facie presumption that the last marriage of Rich Young-his marriage to her-is valid, casting on defendant the burden of proof to the contrary; and her contention is that there was no evidence before the trial court upon which a contrary conclusion could be rested, in short, that the initial presumption of validity has not been evidentially disputed, and must therefore prevail.

In his note to Pittinger v. Pittinger, 28 Colo. 308, 64 P. 195, 89 Am. St. Rep. 193, 199, Judge Freeman, after reviewing the authorities, thus states the general rule:

"If it is shown that a party to a marriage has contracted a previous marriage and that his or her former spouse is still living, this has been held not to destroy the prima facie validity of the second marriage. In such a case it has been presumed that the first marriage has been dissolved by divorce, and that the burden to show that it has not rests on the person seeking to impeach the last marriage, notwithstanding he is thereby required to prove a negative. Here, the presumption of the continuance of the first marriage is made to yield to the presumption in favor of the validity of the second marriage and of the innocence of the parties to it."

This rule has been expressly recognized in a general way by this court. McLaughlin v. McLaughlin, 201 Ala. 482, 78 So. 388, citing 26 Cyc. 887-880. See, also, 18 R. C. L. 420, § 44, and the several cases cited.

Though conceding that the authorities have established the rule, Judge Freeman further observes:

"However, the presumption of the dissolution of a prior marriage, whether by death or divorce, should be indulged with caution. We apprehend that such presumptions sometimes have been made with very little justification. A rule of law which allows an artificial or

...