Jandro v. Jandro

• Decision Date: 08 January 1923
• Docket Number: No. 14519.,14519.
• Parties: JANDRO v. JANDRO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

246 S.W. 609

JANDRO v. JANDRO.

No. 14519.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

January 8, 1923.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cole County; J. G. Slate, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Suit by Mayme Wadley Jandro against Frank Jandro. From judgment for defendant plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

David W. Peters, of Jefferson City, for appellant.

TRIMBLE, P. J.

Plaintiff brought this action asking to have declared null and void a marriage contract which she entered into with the defendant. The trial court refused to declare the so-called marriage null and void, and plaintiff has appealed to this court.

The evidence is that plaintiff was a widow with one child, residing in Jefferson City. Her husband died while a soldier in the A. E. F. In the fall of 1921 she met the defendant and became engaged to him. He told her that he was in the employ of the United States government for the purpose of detecting those engaged in the unlawful traffic in narcotics, and in such capacity was operating in the State Penitentiary at Jefferson City. He was always dressed in civilian clothes when he called upon her and he drove the warden's car. On the 26th of December, 1921, she, in company with defendant, went in an automobile to California, Mo., where he procured a license and they were married, returning to Jefferson City that evening. They did not live together as husband and wife, however, and have never done so. In a few days plaintiff discovered that, instead of her supposed husband being engaged in the ferreting out of the narcotic traffic in the penitentiary, he was in there as a convict on a regular charge of assisting in a jail delivery. The evidence conclusively showed that this was true, and that ha was in the penitentiary as No. 23291, serving a sentence of two years from December 6, 1920.

The defendant, therefore, was, at the time of his pretended marriage to plaintiff, a convict, with all civil rights suspended, and was wholly incapable of entering into any contract. Section 2291, R. S. 1919; Williams v. Shackleford, 97 Mo. 322, 11 S. W. 222. Consequently the formal ceremony through which plaintiff went with the defendant was not one which created a valid marriage contract, or which established plaintiff's status as a married woman, with rights against defendant flowing from that relationship. It was a mere sham, having no reality or substance in it. Nevertheless it had all the proper attributes of form, and its...