Stanley v. Stanley

• Decision Date: 08 August 1903
• Citation: 73 P. 596,32 Wash. 489
• Parties: STANLEY v. STANLEY.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

73 P. 596

32 Wash. 489

STANLEY v. STANLEY.

Supreme Court of Washington

August 8, 1903

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; George E. Morris, Judge.

Action by Ella M. Stanley against Sarah E. Stanley and another to recover damages for the alienation of the affections of plaintiff's husband. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant Sarah E. Stanley appeals. Affirmed.

A. G. McBride, for appellant.

W. F Hays, for respondent.

FULLERTON C.J.

The repondent brought this action in the court below to recover from the appellant and William M. Stanley damages for alienating her husband's affections. On the trial she recovered a substantial judgment against both defendants from which an appeal was taken to this court, which reversed the judgment, and remanded the cause, with instructions to grant a nonsuit as to William M. Stanley, and to retry the cause as to the appellant. Stanley v. Stanley, 27 Wash. 570, 68 P. 187. The cause was retried, as directed, and resulted in a verdict and judgment against the appellant for the sum of $3,500. This appeal is from that judgment.

The first error assigned, and the one to which the argument both in the brief and at the bar was principally directed, is that the evidence is insufficient to justify the verdict. We have examined the some 800 pages of the record devoted to a statement of the evidence, and while we can see how the jury could well have found that the weight of the evidence was with the appellant, we cannot say there was no substantial evidence sustaining the respondent's case. Indeed, if the respondent's testimony was to be believed (and that was a matter solely for the jury to determine), the appellant was the sole cause of her husband's loss of affection for her, and the cause of his subsequent abandonment of herself and her child. While there is not much evidence corroborative of her statements, none is required to sustain the verdict in this court. We are not permitted to retry the facts. If there is substantial evidence in the record sustaining the verdict and judgment, though it be but the evidence of one witness, and that witness the person in whose favor the verdict and judgment is rendered, we have no rightful power to reverse the judgment for want of facts, no matter how strongly we may be convinced that the evidence preponderates with the other side. On this question therefore, the appellant is concluded by the finding of the jury.

Of the assignments which are thought to require a retrial of the cause, the first is that the court erred in sustaining objections to the following questions asked the respondent on her cross-examination, viz.: 'Now I wish you would state to this jury one single act on the part of this defendant Mrs. Stanley, whereby she caused a separation between you and your husband?' 'Can you name any one act on behalf of this defendant that caused the separation of you and John?' The court sustained objections to these questions we think rightly, on the ground that they were too general to support any of the issues. The respondent did not contend, either in her complaint or in her evidence in chief, that any one act of the appellant caused the separation of herself and husband, but she alleged and testified to a series of acts and circumstances, covering a considerable period of time, and it was the sum of these that she relied upon as sustaining her claim that her husband's affection had been alienated by the appellant. But had it been proper to have required her to answer the questions, her answers could not have enlightened the jury in any way. The jury then knew that she could not name any such act, and knew, moreover, that she did not profess or pretend to be able to do so. When a fact...