Sackstaeder v. Kast

• Decision Date: 03 December 1907
• Citation: 105 S.W. 435
• Parties: SACKSTAEDER v. KAST.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

105 S.W. 435

SACKSTAEDER v. KAST.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

December 3, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County, Chancery Branch, First Division.

"Not to be officially reported."

Action by Fannie W. Sackstaeder against Joseph Kast, executor. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

M. A D. A. & J. G. Sachs, for appellant.

Wallace Colter and Burnett & Burnett, for appellee.

HOBSON J.

Six or eight years before his death Joseph Kast separated from his wife. After he separated from his wife he took Fannie W Sackstaeder from a house of ill fame, and from that time until his death she lived with him as his mistress. He had rooms over his saloon in which they slept. The cooking was done downstairs; her meals being sent up to her. He was quite jealous of her, and kept her upstairs. He paid all her bills gave her spending money, and provided for her while he lived. By his will he left her the household furniture and $500. When the executor had qualified, she asked him what the testator had done for her. He told her the provisions of the will. She said that was more than she expected; that she did not expect more than the furniture. The executor turned over to her the property devised to her and paid her the $500. She then opened an assignation house, and brought this suit against the estate, charging that for five years before his death she served the testator as housekeeper, that her services were of value $500 a year, and that the testator had promised to pay her that sum therefor. The answer traversed the allegations of the petition as to the rendition of the services at the request of the testator, as to their value and as to any promise of the testator to pay for them, and alleged that such services as she rendered were incidental to the relation of concubinage existing between her and the testator. On final hearing the court dismissed her petition, and she appeals.

The proof leaves no doubt of the facts above stated. The plaintiff was not in any sense the housekeeper of Kast, but his mistress. She performed no services but such as were incidental to that relation. In McDonald v. Fleming, 12 B. Mon. 286, the court said: "So far as the services for which compensation is claimed were incidental to the illegal condition in which the parties lived and the improper connection subsisting between them, they are not of a character which the law countenances or for which...