Hoag v. Hoag

• Decision Date: 17 October 1911
• Citation: 96 N.E. 49,210 Mass. 94
• Parties: HOAG v. HOAG.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

210 Mass. 94

96 N.E. 49

HOAG v. HOAG.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

October 17, 1911

COUNSEL

H. T. Richardson, for plaintiff.

Daniel E. Webster and Chas. E. Hoag, for respondent.

OPINION

HAMMOND J.

The bill alleges in substance that the defendant and the plaintiff as husband and wife were joint tenants of certain real estate therein described, towards the purchase price of which the plaintiff contributed from her own money about $3,500, being more than one-half of the whole price; that by reason of threats of bodily injury and by fraud and duress practiced upon her by the defendant she was induced against her own will to convey all her interest in the property to him through a third person; and the prayer of the bill is that the deeds of conveyance be canceled and the property be reconveyed to her.

The pleadings were completed and the case referred to a master and, after an interlocutory decree overruling the defendant's exceptions to the master's report and confirming the report, there was a final decree for the plaintiff from which final decree the defendant appealed; and the case is before us upon this appeal. It appears that at the hearing before the superior court upon the merits the defendant asked for certain rulings which evidently were not adopted by the court. And although the case is before us upon appeal from the final decree and not upon exceptions to the refusal to give these rulings, yet inasmuch as the propositions laid down in the rulings requested may be said fairly to be involved in the consideration of the appeal and furthermore to embody the only ground of the objections which the defendant in his brief makes to the decree, we shall follow the brief of the defendant and shall consider only the accuracy of the propositions upon which in his brief he relies.

It appears from the master's report that the plaintiff had brought in the probate court two petitions against the defendant for separate maintenance, each alleging as a ground therefor cruel and abusive treatment on his part; that 'at least the prior suit' was heard and dismissed by the court solely upon the ground that inasmuch as on April 10, 1909, she and her husband became reconciled and continued to cohabit together as husband and wife from that time until the fifteenth day of the same month, she had thereby condoned the cruelty of which she complained. And on her appeal to the superior court the same result was reached for the same reason. It is urged by the defendant that the dismissal of the petition on the ground of condonation is as matter of law absolutely conclusive against the plaintiff in the present suit.

The deeds in question were executed in January, 1909. There can be no doubt that so far as respects the acts of cruelty before April 10, 1909, whether or not they be all alleged in the petition, including those now relied upon to defeat these conveyances, the decree dismissing the plaintiff's petition for a separate maintenance is conclusive against her so far as her matrimonial rights are concerned. Corbett v. Craven, 193 Mass. 30, 78 N.E. 748, and cases cited; Bassett v. Connecticut River R. R., 150 Mass. 178 22 N.E. 890, and cases cited. But condonation in its proper legal sense has reference only to marital rights and liabilities as such and to none other. And while acts which amount to condonation of marital wrongs as such may be evidence of ratification of an act done under...