Johnson v. Kincade

• Decision Date: 30 June 1843
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: REESE JOHNSON BY HIS GUARDIAN v. ANN KINCADE.

2 Ired.Eq. 470

37 N.C. 470

REESE JOHNSON BY HIS GUARDIAN

v.ANN KINCADE.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June Term, 1843.

Idiocy or lunacy is an insuperable impediment to the contracting of marriage.

A Court of Equity in this State, under the powers conferred by the Act of Assembly, Rev. Stat. ch. 39, has authority to pronounce a marriage null and void from the beginning, for want of capacity in one of the parties, and to decree a divorce on that account, there having been a marriage de facto.

Whether a marriage, where one of the parties is an idiot, be void at the common law, and whether therefore it may be unnecessary to have its nullity declared by a judicial sentence; yet it seems fit and convenient that the invalidity of such a marriage should be directly the subject of judicial sentence.

An inquisition, finding idiocy or lunacy, is open to being rebutted by an opposing party. Whether, in this State, in the absence of opposing testimony, it is sufficient prima facie evidence, on which to found a decree of nullity and divorce, quere? In England, it seems the ecclesiastical courts look on a finding of this fact, as only a part of the requisite proof of unsoundness of mind, and demand direct evidence to be taken in the cause of that fact.

This case, having been set for hearing at the Spring Term, 1843, of Rowan Court of Equity, was then, by consent of parties, removed to the Supreme Court.

It was a suit instituted in behalf of Reese Johnson by his committee against Ann Kincade, falsely called Ann Johnson, for the purpose of having declared the nullity of a marriage de facto between the parties. The bill was filed October 15, 1841, and states, that Reese Johnson was an idiot from his nativity, resident in the county of Rowan, and, that, just after he obtained thc age of 21 years, an inquisition was duly held upon a writ for that purpose, issued by the court of Rowan, at August Term, 1827, whereby it was found by the verdict of a jury, that the said Reese was of unsound mind, and was and had been from his nativity an idiot, and that thereupon the said court appointed a guardian and committee of his person and property, and took them under his care, and that the said inquisition and appointment of a committee was never reversed or superseded, but remained in full force up to the filing of the bill. The bill further states, that the said Reese was entitled to a small property, which, under the management of his committee had, after supporting him, accumulated to the value of about $3,000. And the bill then further charges, that, with the view of gaining some interest in the same, the defendant Ann Kincade, in the month of September, 1841, procured a marriage to be celebrated between the said Johnson and herself before a justice of the peace in the town of Salisbury: That in truth, the said Reese was, from mental weakness, incapable at the time of understanding the nature of the contract of marriage, or performing any of the duties arising out of the relation created thereby, and that all that was well known to the defendant: that to effect her said end, the said Ann confederated with one Samuel Owens and one Alpheus Howard, and that they, without any previous courtship or acquaintance between the parties, and carefully concealing their object from the knowledge of the committee and other friends of said Reese, brought or procured him to come with them from the country to Salisbury on a certain day in September, and Owens and Howard procured the license from the Clerk, without allowing the party himself to go with them to the office, and immediately took him privately before a justice of the peace, to whom he was entirely unknown, and had the ceremony performed, then and there deceiving the magistrate as to the plaintiff's capacity, and obtaining the marriage by fraud and circumvention practised on the plaintiff. The answer admits the marriage, and insists on its validity. It denies, that the defendant at the time had any knowledge of the inquisition, or that the said Reese was under guardianship, and it insists, that he was not an idiot, but had capacity to contract marriage, and, as evidence thereof, the answer states, that she heard her husband say, that he was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and further, that, on the night of the day of the marriage, one Blackwell, who married the sister of said Reese, and was well acquainted with him, came to the house, in which the said Reese and Ann were, for the purpose of pursuading him to leave her, and that, upon that occasion, the said Blackwell said to the said Reese, that he had better read his bible than live with the defendant. The answer further states, that the defendant entered into the marriage from motives of affection for the said Reese, and not with the interested pecuniary purposes imputed to her, that the parties lived together harmoniously “for some time,” and that the defendant believes they would have continued to do so, but for the interference of his relations, who were desisirous of se??uring his property to themselves; for that, on the occasion before mentioned, the said Blackwell failed to prevail on the said Reese to leave the defendant, and that he then declared to them, that he would spend $1,000, to have them separated, and that Robert Johnson, an uncle, and the committee of said Reese would spend $1,000 more.

To this answer reylication was taken, and the proofs having been completed, the case was set for hearing.

Caldwell for the plaintiff .

No counsel for the defendant.

RUFFIN, C. J.

The evidence satisfies the court of the extreme mental weakness, at the least, if not absolute fatuity from birth, of Reese Johnson. The inquisition of 1827 has been produced, and it finds this person to be “of unsound mind, and that he has been so from his infancy.” Pending this controversy, there has also been a second inquisition, on which the jury, upon the testimony of witnesses, and also upon the production and examination of the party in person, found him “to be...