Smith v. Hall

• Decision Date: 05 October 1897
• Citation: 69 Conn. 651,38 A. 386
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: SMITH v. HALL.

38 A. 386

69 Conn. 651

SMITH

v. HALL.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Oct. 5, 1897.

Appeal from superior court, Litchfield county; Ralph Wheeler, Judge.

Action by Mary E. Smith against Addison T. Hall to recover for the value of services rendered, and to recover damages for a breach of promise of marriage. Verdict and judgment for the plaintiff for $5,310.34 damages, and appeal by the defendant for alleged errors in the rulings and charge of the court. Error and new trial nisi.

The defendant also filed in the superior court a motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the evidence, and the amount of damages awarded therein excessive, and, this motion being denied, filed a similar motion for the consideration and action of this court. Motion denied. The complaint contained two counts; the first consisting of the common counts, and the second being a special count setting forth a breach of promise of marriage. Under the first count the following bill of particulars was filed:

Addison T. Hall to Mary E. Smith, Dr.

To services rendered and time expended in nursing, caring for, and attending to said Hall, at his re-quest, from November 1st, 1892, to January 1st, 1894, sixty and four-sevenths weeks, at thirty dollars per week

$1,817 12

To interest

——

The answer consisted of a general denial of all the allegations of the complaint, and the three following special defenses to the second count, namely: "(1) The defendant has paid to the plaintiff all that there was ever due from him to her upon the matters stated in the first count. (2) The plaintiff has been a person of immoral character and habits, and has been the keeper of a bed house, which facts became known to the defendant subsequently to, and were not known by defendant previous to, the making of the pretended promises in said second count alleged, if any such were made. (3) At the time of the alleged promise of the defendant, he was of unsound mind, and mentally incapable to make or enter into the contract or promise alleged." The reply denied the truth of the matters contained in these special defenses.

Upon the trial the plaintiff offered evidence to prove, and claimed to have proved, in substance, the following facts: She first met the defendant in September, 1892. She was then about 30 years of age, and the defendant about 43. She had resided in Woodbury, in this state, all her life, except as hereinafter stated. She had been married in 1883 to Dudleigh Smith, then of Woodbury, and had a son living, the issue of that marriage, born In December, 1883. Her husband, in the early part of 1885, left Woodbury for Colorado, to seek employment, and she was to join him there with her boy as soon as her husband was so situated as to be able to re ceive them. In the spring of 1886, as she was about to set out for Denver, Colo., to join her husband at his request, she received from him a postal card dated June 9, 1886, telling her not to start till she heard from him again, as he had been called to Leadville, and did not know just when he should return to Denver. She resolved to go on and visit some friends in the West until she should further hear from her husband (writing him to this effect), and thereupon proceeded to Galesburg, Ill. She never heard from her husband thereafter, nor obtained any tidings whatever concerning him. After a time she went to Minneapolis, and rented a house having 16 rooms, and rented the same to lodgers. She finally sold out this business, and returned to Woodbury in March, 1888, where she has since resided. In the course of two weeks after she first met the defendant, he became quite personal in his attention to her, whereupon she informed him of the above facts, and said to him that, while she had every reason to believe her husband was dead, she had no actual or positive proof of the fact. The defendant then told of his past experiences, having been married twice; that he was in ill health, retired from business, and anxious to have a home. He asked her to marry him, stating that he was worth $50,000, consisting of real estate on Crown street, New Haven, and some bank stock. She declined to accept his offer then, but assented to his request that he might call upon her in Woodbury. In October, 1892, the defendant wrote to her the letters set forth in the record, and on the 25th of that month came to Woodbury, spending some days there, mostly in her company; and during this visit she showed him some, and read to him others, of the letters from her husband, including the postal card aforesaid of June 9, 1886. Defendant, during this visit, said he agreed with her in the belief that her husband was probably dead, and again asked her to marry him and go South for the winter, but she refused to consent to this without obtaining a divorce. Defendant thereupon "urgently insisted that she should begin divorce proceedings' at once, and, yielding to his importunities in this regard, she applied for a divorce, which was granted May 2, 1893," on the ground of desertion. Afterwards the defendant called upon the plaintiff in Woodbury several times, and wrote her the several letters set forth in the record, and in December 1892, came to Woodbury, and requested the plaintiff to obtain board for him at her grandmother's, with whom the plaintiff resided, and this was done. The defendant continued to board there from that time, with some few brief absences, till the latter part of November, 1893. At the time the divorce was granted a building was being erected for the defendant on his Crown street property; and in May, 1893, shortly after the divorce was granted, the defendant promised to marry the plaintiff as soon as the building was erected and rented, and she agreed to marry him. "The defendant testified that he promised to marry her when the block was completed, but that this promise was made by him in July, 1893, instead of in May, as the plaintiff claimed." The building was completed and rented in October, 1893. While defendant was thus boarding in Woodbury, he was sick and nervous a good deal of the time; and the plaintiff cared for and waited upon him in his sickness, bathed him in alcohol and salt water, gave him his medicines day and night, and in general performed all the offices of a nurse. It was for these services that plaintiff sought to recover under the first count. "The plaintiff did not claim that there was any express agreement that the defendant should pay her for services rendered, but did claim that the services were rendered at his request, and in reliance upon, and as a consideration for, the promises of marriage made by the defendant." In November, 1893, the plaintiff requested the defendant to fulfill his promise of marriage, but he then and ever after, without any sufficient reason, refused to do so, and in June, 1896, married another woman.

The defendant was a witness in his own behalf, and a portion of his testimony was to the effect following, to wit: That he could not and would not marry the plaintiff, because of the stories he had heard after leaving her grandmother's house, just before Thanksgiving time, reflecting upon her moral character; that he had heard from a stranger, a drummer, whose name he could not ascertain, that she had, while in Minneapolis at the time referred to, kept a house of ill fame; that he had also heard the same story from one George H. Ford, who resided in Waterbury, but who had for many years resided in Woodbury, and who was well acquainted with the plaintiff and her reputation; that his sister had informed him that she had heard that the plaintiff was a crooked woman; that one of his sisters at one time called the plaintiff a vile woman in his presence; that he believed the story told him by George Ford, because Ford had been out West; that Woodbury people laughed at him because he was boarding there with the plaintiff; that the stories that he had heard as to her conduct aforesaid worried him so he could not sleep, and that, therefore, he went and called upon her, thinking that she would deny the stories; that he told her (the plaintiff) of the stories he had heard concerning her aforesaid, and that she admitted to him that such stories were true of her (this was denied by the plaintiff); that he had been informed that her boy was born in about eight months after she and its father had been married (the defendant admitted, however, in the course of his examination, that the plaintiff had told him that the birth of the boy was hastened by a fall which she sustained); that he said to her at the time he reported to her the stories he had heard of her conduct aforesaid, referring to one Dr. Ketchum, who had formerly resided in Woodbury, that: "I believe Dr. Ketchum has slept with you more times than I have got hairs on my head. Now, I am sorry to say it, for you and your boy's sake. I shall not marry a crooked woman, unless I am married asleep;" that subsequently, on two occasions, without his consent and against his protest, the plaintiff entered his room, and got into bed with him, with nothing but her night clothing upon her. Said George H. Ford was produced as a witness on the part of the plaintiff on rebuttal, and denied that he had ever said to the defendant anything of the kind aforesaid, or anything reflecting upon the character or reputation of the plaintiff, but upon the contrary, in the fall of 1892, that he met the defendant in Waterbury, and was informed by the defendant that he had recently met the plaintiff at his sister's house in Wallingford, that he liked her, and inquired of the witness Ford what kind of a lady she was; that thereupon Mr. Ford told him that she was a lady of very high standing in Woodbury. The defendant also offered evidence to prove, and claimed to have proved, that the plaintiff's services to him were of a trivial nature, and had been fully paid for by him; that the plaintiff never told him till February, 1894,...