Rudd v. Rounds
| Decision Date | 25 August 1892 |
| Parties | MERRITT F. RUDD v. JAMES H. ROUNDS |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
FEBRUARY TERM, 1892
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
C H. Darling, for the defendant.
This is an action brought to recover damages for an alienation of the affections of the plaintiff's wife and thereby causing her to leave him. The wife's state of mind and regard for the plaintiff at the time she became acquainted with the defendant, and during the time of that acquaintance, until she left the plaintiff, and if there was a change during that period, whether caused by the conduct of the plaintiff, or the wrongful conduct of the defendant, were proper subjects of inquiry and investigation. The condition of her mind in regard to her husband, and what caused it to change from time to time, could be ascertained by her acts and conduct towards the plaintiff and defendant respectively and by their acts and conduct towards her, and by her and their expression of their respective mental state towards and for each other, and of the causes therefor. The nature of the suit and what was involved in its solution, opened a broad field of inquiry and investigation. The wrongful alienation of her affection by the defendant, resulting in her leaving and refusing to live with the plaintiff, as his wife, constitutes the gist of the action. Her leaving and refusal bore upon whether her affections had been alienated from some cause, and if caused by the wrongful conduct of the defendant, upon the amount of damages recoverable. What she said concurrent with, and while she was leaving the plaintiff's house, and on her way to the house where the defendant was stopping, and when she had reached there, and her refusal at the request of the defendant, to return to her husband, characterizing and giving the reason for her leaving, and refusal to return, were a part of the res gestae of the leaving and refusal to return, and admissible in evidence. State v. Howard, 32 Vt. 380; Hadley v. Carter, 8 N. H. 40. The latter case was for enticing away a servant, and quite analogous, in principle. Her leaving was not fully accomplished until she had reached the house where the defendant was stopping, and refused, on his advice, to return to the plaintiff. What she gave as her reason for leaving, to the defendant, to her father and mother, gave character to the act she was then performing, and should have been received in evidence. These declarations were concurrent with and a part of the act, of which the defendant complained. They were made before this suit was, or could have been, in contemplation. As announced by Redfield, J. in Danforth v. Streeter, 28 Vt. 490: "The jury were to judge * * * whether the declarations were made bona fide, or were a mere ruse to get up evidence upon his own behalf, or for some other intended purpose." We observe nothing in that part of the mother's deposition excluded which we think was inadmissible. The defendant had the right to show what the wife, when exhibiting wounds and bruises claimed to have been inflicted by the plaintiff, said of their effect upon her feelings towards the plaintiff. The occasions were either shortly before, or during her acquaintance with the defendant. Gilchrist v. Bale, 8 Watts 355 (34 Am. Dec. 469). That the plaintiff made no reply to the mother's letter accusing him of personal abuse of his wife and of his changed manner...
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