Lathrop v. Lathrop

• Decision Date: 08 March 1906
• Citation: 63 A. 514,78 Conn. 650
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: LATHROP v. LATHROP.

63 A. 514

78 Conn. 650

LATHROP

v. LATHROP.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 8, 1906.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; William S. Case, Judge.

Action by Elizabeth S. Lathrop against Edwin U. Lathrop. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Lucien F. Burpee, for appellant John O'Neill, for appellee.

PRENTICE, J. This action is brought by a wife against her husband. It is brought under section 2499 of the General, Statutes of 1902, which provides that "when any person shall become poor and unable to support himself or herself and family, and shall have a husband, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, children or grandchildren, who are able to provide such support, It shall be provided by them; and if they shall neglect to provide it, the selectmen of the town, or the wife of such husband, or any of such relatives, may bring a complaint therefor to the superior court * * * against such husband or any of such relatives able to provide; which court may order the defendant or defendants to contribute to such support," etc. The complaint alleges, among other things, the defendant's neglect to support the plaintiff, and prays for an order requiring him to contribute thereto. The defendant in his answer denies the allegation of neglect, and also makes a special defense which we shall have no occasion to notice. The case was referred to a committee to hear and report the facts. A remonstrance was filed to the report. The remonstrance was overruled, the reported facts found, and judgment rendered thereon directing the defendant to contribute to the plaintiff's support the sum of $100 a month, being substantially one-half of his income.

The first question which naturally presents itself upon an examination of the statute and its history relates to the nature of the support, which is its subject-matter. Does it include that maintenance which a husband by virtue of the marital contract is bound, under the circumstances of the case, to provide for his wife, or is it limited to that measure of support which the public is under the statutory duty to provide for all who are in need? In the present case the committee set up, and the court accepted as the standard by which the defendant's alleged neglect was to be determined, that by which the law measures his marital duty of maintenance. He was found to have neglected to support the plaintiff within the meaning of the statute, because he had not provided for her in a way suited to her station and his condition in life and as she had been accustomed to live in their happier married days, and was ordered to contribute to her such a sum as would give her that measure of support. It is unnecessary to inquire whether or not in so doing the scope and purpose of the statute was correctly understood. It may be assumed, without deciding, that it was, and that the support whose withholding is made the basis of the proceedings prescribed and whose contribution may thereby be compelled is that measure of support, whatever it be which one person is under the obligation of providing for another sustaining one of the relations to him designated in the statute, since it is clear that, even so, the court erred in holding upon the facts found that there had been prior to the commencement of the action any neglect within the meaning of ...