Peck v. Vandemark

• Decision Date: 14 April 1885
• Citation: 1 N.E. 41,99 N.Y. 29
• Parties: PECK v. VANDEMARK, EX'r, etc.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

99 N.Y. 29

1 N.E. 41

PECK

v.VANDEMARK, EX'r, etc.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Filed April 14, 1885.

In September, 1879, the plaintiff was a widow, whose husband had been killed in the civil war, and she was receiving an annual pension of $96. After that time she became acquainted with the defendant's testator, Sealey Peck, and he made her a proposition of marriage, which led to a correspondence between them. Several letters were written by each to the other for the purpose of settling and agreeing upon the pecuniary provision which he would make for her in case she would marry him. He represented that he was worth $10,000, and the correspondence resulted in a proposition by him to give her by will one-half his entire property, absolutely, and the use of the other half during her life. She accepted the proposition and married him on the ninth day of March, 1880, and they thereafter cohabited together as husband and wife. On the twentieth day of April, 1881, he made a will in which he bequeathed to her only the sum of $200, in addition to her dower interest in his estate; and he died on the sixth of June thereafter, leaving the will in force, which was proved, and letters thereon were issued to the defendant on the nineteenth day of September, 1881. The testator left real estate worth $5,000, and personal property worth about $2,300, and he owed a small amount of debts. Thereafter, in April, 1882, this action was commenced by the plaintiff to recover damages for the breach of the antenuptial contract on the part of the testator. The answer put in issue the material allegations of the complaint. The cause came on for trial at a circuit court, and at the close of the evidence the trial judge nonsuited the plaintiff, on the ground that the claim was one that, in the nature of the case, could not be estimated until the estate was settled, and the debts shown to have been paid, and that, therefore, the action was prematurely brought. From the judgment entered upon the nonsuit the plaintiff appealed to the general term, and there the judgment was reversed and a new trial granted, and then the defendant appealed to this court.

W. H. Adams, for appellant.

Frederick L. Manning, for respondent.

EARL, J.

The 11 letters put in evidence which passed between the plaintiff and the testator, commencing on the fourth day of October, 1879, and ending on the third day of December thereafter, all related to the same subject, to-wit, the marriage of the parties, and the terms upon which it should be consummated. The whole correspondence was to settle the pecuniary compensation which the plaintiff was to have in consideration of her marriage to the testator. He distinctly proposed to give her by will one-half of the entire property which he should leave at his death, and the use of the other half thereof for her life. She finally accepted the proposition, and, relying upon the agreement thus made, married him and subsequently lived with him. These letters furnish the written evidence of the agreement required by the statute of frauds; and it matters not that the whole agreement may not be contained in one letter. The entire proposition, however, on the part of the testator was in one letter, and her acceptance thereof in another. All the letters, taken together, show clearly what the agreement was, and they are all connected and related to each other, and thus all of them may be considered for the purpose of ascertaining what the agreement was.

In 1 Greenl. Ev. (Redfield's Ed.) § 268, the learned author says: ‘It is sufficient if the contract can be plainly made out, in all its terms, from any writings of the party, or even from his correspondence, but it must all be collected from the writings.’ In Whart. Ev., at section 872, it is said: ‘It is enough, in...