Hawks v. Yancey

• Decision Date: 05 July 1924
• Docket Number: (No. 9360.)
• Citation: 265 S.W. 233
• Parties: HAWKS v. YANCEY.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

265 S.W. 233

HAWKS v. YANCEY.

(No. 9360.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Dallas.

July 5, 1924.

Appeal from District Court, Dallas County; Royal A. Watkins, Judge.

Action by Josephine V. Hawks against Robert S. Yancey. From an order refusing temporary injunction, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded, with instructions.

J. D. Kugle and Rasbury, Adams & Harrell, all of Dallas, for appellant.

Alexander Pope, of Dallas, for appellee.

LOONEY J.

This appeal is from an order of the trial court refusing appellant's petition for the issuance of a temporary writ of injunction.

Appellant, Miss Josephine V. Hawks, brought this suit against appellee, Dr. Robert S. Yancey, for damages, actual and exemplary, and for injunction, temporary and permanent.

The substance of appellant's cause of action as presented in her sworn petition is that during the year 1916 she entered St. Paul's Sanitarium, an institution of the city of Dallas, Tex., as a student nurse, from which she graduated three years later and continued, after graduation, as a nurse in the institution; that while a student there, being about 18 years of age, she met appellee, who visited the sanitarium professionally; that appellee was at the time a man about 40 years of age, having a wife and two sons, was an accomplished eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist, enjoyed a lucrative practice, was well educated, an accomplished conversationalist, attractive, persuasive, and of eminent social and business standing; that appellee, with lecherous and lustful design, began a course of deceptive and fraudulent conduct towards appellant, for the purpose and with the view of seducing, debauching, and making her his paramour; that he paid appellant most assiduous and delicate attentions, showering upon her gifts of flowers, perfumes, candies, and arranged dinner parties in order to be in her company, persuaded her to take automobile rides with him, protesting that he was her friend and would not ask her to do anything improper. He paid appellant delicate compliments, telling her she was beautiful, that he loved her, that he never had happiness at home, that he and his wife were estranged and really separated, that his wife had gone to their summer home in the state of Maine and would not return, and that it was his intention to procure a divorce and make appellant his wife. Appellant believed what appellee told her and, because of these assiduous and delicate attentions and professions of love, also learned to love him, trusted him implicitly, and, in this frame of mind, she yielded herself to and was seduced and debauched by appellee in his private office in the Wilson building on July 21, 1918. Thereafter, under the promise, repeatedly and continuously made, that he would procure a divorce from his wife and marry appellant, she continued to meet and be with appellee at various places; lived with him as his wife at various hotels in the cities of Dallas, San Antonio, Waco, Corpus Christi, Fort Worth, and Denver, Colo.; that this criminal intimacy continued from July 21, 1918, until the month of September, 1923. Appellant became impatient about appellee's procrastination in carrying out his promise often made to divorce his wife and marry her, and had become insistent, telling him that she had wasted six years of her life with him, had had none of the pleasures of girlhood nor of married life, was ostracized and could not go or be with him except when they would slip away and be in hiding; and that she would no longer continue this relation, would not meet or see him again, and would no longer live under such a cloud.

Appellee, in order to perpetuate this sinful relation and to further seduce and debauch appellant, began a passionate campaign of letter writing and telephone conversations, couched in the most affectionate and endearing language, telling appellant of his great love for her, that he could not live without her, that she was the only one he had ever loved, etc.; but she continued to repulse and evade him, and reiterated her determination to cease the life she had been living.

That about October 23, 1923, appellant met a Mr. Harold Clark, a reputable gentleman, who was a patient at St. Paul's Sanitarium, appellant being his nurse during convalescence from an operation that he had undergone, and they became friends, which ripened later into mutual affection and an engagement to marry.

That appellee continued to pursue appellant by telephone calls, by letters declaring his love and importuning her to see him and talk with him just once more. To this appellant finally consented, and, in the interview, begged appellee to desist and not further embarrass and humiliate her, that she was engaged to be married to a reputable man who loved her, and that she loved him, and that she believed he would make her a good husband, and appealed to appellee not to pursue her further, that it might get to the ear of Mr. Clark and cause their engagement to be broken off; that his further pursuit of her and his importunities would be of no avail, as she had finally and conclusively broken with him and intended to marry Mr. Clark. Thereupon, appellee became infuriated, threatened to break up her prospective marriage with Mr. Clark by exposing her to him, and threatened to expose her to her sisters and at the sanitarium where she worked as a professional nurse; that he would humiliate, embarrass, and utterly destroy her unless she returned to their former life and submitted herself to his demands and desires, offering in this connection to give her a home of her choice in the city of Dallas and that he would make a generous provision for her if she would continue this sinful relation. This she rejected, and appellee thereupon began, by artifices and threats, to persecute, humiliate, and destroy appellant. On one occasion appellee, being alone at his home, feigned sickness and importuned appellant to come to him. This she refused, but secured for him another nurse. He also called in a physician and had the nurse in charge telephone appellant that he was sick, and continually called for her, and the nurse urged appellant to come, stating that it was a small favor to grant, and, being thus importuned, she went to the home of appellee, and, after reaching his presence, he begged her not to marry Mr. Clark and to resume their former relations, and, on her firm refusal, appellee assaulted, choked, cursed, and abused her.

In furtherance of his threats and formed design to expose and destroy her, appellee visited Mr. Harold Clark, who was to him a perfect stranger, and revealed to him in great detail the relations that had formerly existed between appellant and appellee, telling Clark that appellant was an adulteress and an unfit person for him to marry, and, by reason of this conduct on the part of appellee, Mr. Clark broke the marriage engagement with appellant, to her great humiliation, pain, and anguish of mind.

In furtherance of this wicked design, appellee, during the month of February, 1924, while appellant was in her car on the streets of Dallas, imposed himself, unbidden, upon her, forced himself into her car, snatched from her her purse and took from the car the keys thereof and refused to return these articles, but left, going to his office, forcing appellant, in order to recover these articles, to follow him, begging for their return; and, when his office was reached, he closed the door and physically assaulted appellant, choked and beat her, and later went to Capt. W. R. Moffett, of the detective force of the city of Dallas, and falsely informed this official that appellant was a blackmailer, that she had run into his office demanding that if he did not pay her money she would expose him to the public, would telephone his wife and destroy his home and business, and requested this official to demand that appellant desist from her blackmail under the threat of arrest and exposure; that said officer, believing the false statements of appellee, visited the place where appellant was boarding, and there, in the presence of the lady of the house, charged appellant with being a blackmailer and threatened to arrest her, as the results of which she suffered great fear, shame, humiliation, and mental anguish, was rendered nervous and sleepless, and her health impaired.

On another occasion, seeing appellant on the streets of the city of Dallas, appellee pointed her out to a policeman, saying: "There she goes now; arrest her."

That about March 2, 1924, near the noon hour, appellant parked her car on a busy commercial thoroughfare of the city of Dallas, and, on returning to it, found appellee in the same, and, after being requested to leave, he refused and again threatened, intimidated, and put appellant in great fear for her life and safety, and did not leave until friends of appellant called police officers to come to her relief and to accompany her home.

That in March, 1924, appellee went to Dan Harston, sheriff of Dallas county, and Shelby Cox, district attorney of Dallas county, and to these officials made the false charge against appellant that she was a blackmailer, that she had endeavored to extort money from him under the threat that she would destroy his home and business, stating to these officers that appellant should be arrested and charged with the crime of blackmail. Believing these false charges, the district attorney called for appellant over the telephone at the place where she was stopping, left his number, with direction that appellant call him later, and, on being called by appellant, the district attorney stated that she had been charged with the crime of blackmail and threatened her with arrest and confinement in jail, and invited her to his office to discuss the matter before beginning prosecution. All this caused appellant renewed and continued mental suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, restlessness, and nervousness.

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