Hudima v. Hudyma.
| Decision Date | 06 July 1944 |
| Citation | 39 A.2d 890,131 Conn. 281 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | HUDIMA v. HUDYMA. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Action by Helen Hudima against Jacob Hudyma for alienation of the affections of plaintiff's husband, brought to the Superior Court in New Haven County and tried to the jury before McEvoy, J. Verdict for plaintiff which the court set aside, and from this action the plaintiff appeals.
Error and case remanded with direction.
The appellee filed a motion for reargument which was denied.
Joseph Koletsky, of New Haven, for appellant.
Ellsworth B. Foote, Richard C. Hannan and, David E. FitzGerald, Jr., all of New Haven, for appellee.
Before MALTBIE, C.J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, and DICKENSON, JJ.
This was a suit for alienation of affections brought by a wife against her father-in-law. The trial resulted in a plaintiff's verdict for $5000 which the trial court set aside as against the evidence. The plaintiff appealed from this ruling and the questions are whether there was evidence to support the verdict and whether the damages were excessive. The plaintiff was a divorcee, twenty-eight years of age, with one child, five years of age. She was introduced to Walter Hudima, twentytwo years of age, only son of the defendant, at a party and after a courtship lasting about a year and a half they were married. After a short honeymoon they lived in a furnished room on Crown Street in New Haven for about a month when, at the suggestion of Walter, they went to live with his parents. The plaintiff's child lived with the plaintiff's mother at this time. The premises occupied by the two families consisted of three rooms: two bedrooms and a combined living room and kitchen. They lived there from November, 1940, until July, 1941. The accommodations were inadequate and after unsuccessful attempts by all parties to find a rent the defendant bought a house on Congress Avenue, paying $3000 in cash and giving a first mortgage of $1500. The first floor was rented and the two families, including the plaintiff's child, occupied the second floor. This arrangement continued until July, 1942, when the plaintiff took her child and left. The immediate cause of this was a quarrel with her mother-in-law. The plaintiff and Walter have not lived together since although he took her to the theater two or three times thereafter and saw her on other occasions. The plaintiff worked as a laundress during her marriage to Walter although she was not in good health. Walter worked as a chef and toward the end of the period of their living together was earning about $45 a week. The defendant was opposed to the marriage, did not like his daughter-in-law and made things very unpleasant for her both by his language and his treatment of her and her child while the two families were living together. He and his wife dominated their only son and their attitude and actions were calculated and intended to break up the marriage, in which, as has been stated, they were successful.
There was evidence to justify the jury in finding these facts. The trial court held that there was no evidence from which such alienation of affections as was alleged in the complaint could be inferred and that Walter's affections were not alienated in fact; and for these reasons it set the verdict aside.
The evidence was fairly extensive and the foregoing statement is a brief summary of the principal facts which reasonably could have been found by the jury. It would serve no useful purpose to include in this opinion a detailed analysis of all of the occurrences that took place. The decision of the determinative question must depend upon a reading of that evidence to see whether there was a reasonable basis for the conclusion reached by the jury.
It is the claim of the defendant that Walter's affections were not, in fact, alienated. This is not the ultimate test. ...
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...was loss of consortium described by the court as "a property right growing out of the marriage relation ...." Hudima v. Hudyma, 131 Conn. 281, 283-84, 39 A.2d 890, 891 (1944). Another irony in the cases of this era lies in the fact that although the wife's legal disabilities were statutoril......
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