Kahn v. Grothaus
| Decision Date | 07 April 1937 |
| Docket Number | No. 9992.,9992. |
| Citation | 104 S.W.2d 932 |
| Parties | KAHN v. GROTHAUS. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Forty-Fifth District, Bexar County; S. G. Tayloe, Judge.
Action by Lilyan Jardine Kahn against Emma Grothaus. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Elmer Ware Stahl, A. R. Sohn, and Hull & Oliver, all of San Antonio, for appellant.
Boyle, Wheeler, Gresham & Terrell and H. M. Parker, all of San Antonio, for appellee.
Appellant filed this suit in the Forty-Fifth district court of Bexar county, on the 5th day of January, 1935, against Emma Grothaus, seeking damages to the extent of $40,000 for the alleged alienation of the affections of her former husband, Dr. I. S. Kahn, by the said Emma Grothaus. A similar suit had been filed by the appellant against the appellee in the Thirty-Seventh district court of Bexar county, which asked for $100,000 damages, which was similar, if not substantially the same cause as set up in this suit.
The first suit was, on the 11th day of March, 1932, disposed of by a judgment that Lilyan Jardine Kahn take nothing by her suit against Emma Grothaus. The judgment entered on the 11th day of March, 1932, was pleaded by Emma Grothaus in bar of this suit. There was a trial to a jury and upon answers to special issues judgment was entered in favor of appellee and against appellant, hence this appeal.
The trial court adjudged the costs of this suit against the appellee; of this Emma Grothaus does not complain.
The appellant brings forward for our review twenty propositions assigning error, grounded upon twenty-five assignments of error. The record and briefs are rather voluminous. After reading the briefs and the entire record, it will only be necessary for us to discuss a few propositions of law, which we think will dispose of this appeal.
The evidence shows that the appellant, Lilyan Jardine Kahn, and Dr. I. S. Kahn were married at or near Cambridge, Mass., while Dr. Kahn was a literary student at Harvard; that at the time of their marriage Mrs. Kahn was eighteen years of age and Dr. Kahn, was nineteen years of age; that about 1903 Dr. Kahn, after having been graduated by Harvard with a B. A. degree, was graduated from the medical department with an M. D. degree; that, after serving his interneship in Boston, he and Mrs. Kahn moved to the city of Dallas and resided there for a time, after which they went to the Republic of Mexico, and, finally, in about 1913, came to San Antonio. That the marital relation between Mrs. Kahn and R. Kahn was happy and, aside from the usual unimportant disagreements, continued up until about the year 1926, at which time a serious disagreement occurred between them, occasioned, perhaps, by the dislike of Mrs. Kahn for the mother of Dr. Kahn. Notwithstanding this disagreement, they continued to live together as husband and wife, and about 1928 another event happened between them, which we shall hereafter notice.
About 1920 appellee, Emma Grothaus, after being confined to her bed almost continuously for about two years, through a call from her parents, was visited professionally by Dr. I. S. Kahn. It appears that she had been diagnosed as a tubercular, which diagnosis was not agreed to by Dr. Kahn. Dr. Kahn diagnosed her case as one of asthma and treated her professionally for a period of eight or ten months, and as a result of his treatment she became greatly improved. She was then given a position in the office of Dr. Kahn, at a salary of $50 per month, to answer the telephone and greet the patients in Dr. Kahn's office. Having been a sufferer of asthma, she interested herself in the treatment of that disease and read all medical authorities on that subject, together with all current periodicals on the disease, and after four or five years became a technician with reference to the causes of the disease and the treatment offered therefor. Prior to 1928, it appears that the appellant and Emma Grothaus were on friendly terms. At about that time it appears that the appellant became jealous of Emma Grothaus and objected to her working in appellant's husband's office. At the time appellee had knowledge of this condition the appellee was advised by Dr. Kahn that Mrs. Kahn was a mental case. The record shows that Dr. Kahn was advised by specialists in the treatment of mental and nervous diseases that Mrs. Kahn was mentally ill. One specialist had been called, professionally, by the appellant, Mrs. Kahn, who testified in this cause, that Mrs. Kahn was mentally ill. He was called to testify by appellee.
To maintain her cause of action, Mrs. Kahn was the only one testifying in her behalf and the only evidence which she gave that would in anywise tend to prove any part of the cause of action asserted by her was the fact that on occasions, after the completion of the day's work at the office, Dr. Kahn had accommodated Miss Grothaus with a ride within a block of her home, which necessitated the doctor having to drive two or three blocks out of his way to his home, and that on occasions, the doctor's business having grown to caring for twenty-five to forty patients per day, for some four or five times at or near the first of each month, Miss Grothaus and the doctor would stay at the office, after office hours, for the purpose of making up the bills and, on some occasions, when making up the bills they would go to a public cafeteria and there have a meal together. Dr. Kahn testified that as soon as it was made known to him that his wife objected to these practices they were discontinued. The record further shows that on one occasion, at one of the downtown department stores, the appellant, without any cause, assaulted the appellee, Miss Grothaus; and on another occasion the appellant assaulted Miss Grothaus at Dr. Kahn's office. The record further shows that, beginning about the year 1931, a sister of the appellant was employed in Dr. Kahn's office, and continued to work there up until the time of her illness, which occurred shortly before the trial of this suit.
The record shows that some two or three years before the filing of this suit the appellant made a public scene in reference to Dr. Kahn, and made it known that she was going to his office...
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Williams v. Rearick
...intentional conduct, creates a cause of action in favor of the spouse damaged against the offender in this respect. Kahn v. Grothaus, Tex.Civ.App., 104 S.W.2d 932. The insufficiency of the evidence to sustain venue in the instant case is that appellee does not establish any intentional, pur......
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Smith v. Smith, 5990
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