Russell v. Chambers

• Decision Date: 17 July 1883
• Citation: 31 Minn. 54,16 N.W. 458
• Parties: RUSSELL v CHAMBERS.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

31 Minn. 54

16 N.W. 458

RUSSELLvCHAMBERS.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Filed July 17, 1883.

Appeal from an order of the district court, Steele county.

Burlingame & Crandall, for respondent.

Wheelock & Sperry and Amos Cogswell, for appellant.

VANDERBURGH, J.

Action for seduction of plaintiff's minor daughter. The facts set forth in the complaint are amply sufficient to constitute a cause of action in plaintiff's favor. The action is brought for the loss of service and other injuries resulting to him in consequence of the wrong complained of. The motion to dismiss for the insufficiency of the complaint was, therefore, properly denied. The refusal of the court to strike out matter alleged to be redundant or irrelevant at the trial is not ground of exception. The motion for such relief should be made before answering. The evidence offered of the conduct of the defendant subsequent to the alleged seduction and the birth of the child, and of the subsequent relations maintained between the parties, was properly received. It tended to corroborate the principal charge, and to show the extent of the injury wrought by his conduct; and was, also, proper as matter of aggravation. It was proper that the jury should be possessed of all the material facts showing the means used by defendant to effect his purpose, his subsequent conduct in seeking to continue his illicit relations, and to keep her under his control and influence, and away from her friends, and her consequent physical and mental condition. These all grew out of, and were connected with, the original wrong and injury complained of, and evidence thereof was properly received. As remarked by the court in Thompson v. Clendening, 1 Head, (Tenn.) 295: “The whole of defendant's intercourse with the seduced, and all the circumstances connected with it, are to be regarded as one entire transaction; as well in view of the question whether the defendant is the father of the child, as to show the extent of the injury in aggravation of damages.”

It is contended that the court erred in allowing evidence of the ill-health and depressed mental condition of the daughter, following her confinement, and for a year or two thereafter. There is undoubtedly danger in this class of cases of allowing evidence of this character, and of matters in aggravation, to take too wide a range, but we think the evidence in question was proper in this case. There was sufficient to show that her physical and mental condition was the result of defendant's misconduct; and apart from the...