Stapleberg v. Stapleberg
| Decision Date | 14 June 1904 |
| Parties | STAPLEBERG v. STAPLEBERG. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Edwin B. Gager, Judge.
Action by Anna Stapleberg against Herman D. Stapleberg. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Action to have a marriage declared void, and for alimony, under the provisions of section 4562 of the General Statutes of 1902, brought to the Superior Court in Fairfield County; answer and cross-complaint; facts found, and judgment rendered, granting the prayers of the complaint, by the court (Gager, J.),; and an appeal by the defendant for alleged errors in the rulings and judgment of the court. No error.
The plaintiff and defendant, of German birth, and related to each other in the degree of uncle and niece, and both at the time residents of Danbury, in this state, were married in New York state on June 16, 1899. Both knew of their relationship, and both were ignorant of any law forbidding their marriage, and believed that they could lawfully marry. The law of New York declares marriages between uncle and niece incestuous and void. After the marriage ceremony the parties, believing that they were lawfully married, returned to Danbury, where they thereafter lived as husband and wife upon a small farm until about May 1, 1902, when the plaintiff, having for the first time learned that she had no right to live with the defendant as his wife, ceased to cohabit with him, and, as soon as she could thereafter make the necessary arrangements, left his house, and immediatetly brought this action. Some time prior to said May 1, 1902, the defendant became aware that his marriage was illegal. He so told the plaintiff, and asked her to tear up the marriage certificate. She, not being familiar with the English language, asked what "legal" meant. He replied that it meant that if he died she could not get any of his property. She thereupon refused to tear up the certificate, because she at the time believed that as long, as she had the certificate she was married to him, and, relying thereon, she continued to cohabit with the defendant until on or about May 1, 1902. when, having occasion to visit a lawyer, she learned the truth concerning her situation, with the result described. During the time the parties lived together the family consisted of the couple, a son of the defendant by a former marriage, and one or more boarders. No child was born to them. The plaintiff did the genera] housework, and at times took care of and milked and fed and bedded five cows, aided in the care of three horses, raised poultry, and made butter. The expenses paid by the defendant for the plaintiff's clothing and other matters, outside of ordinary living expenses, amounted to less than $50. From time to time during the period of their cohabitation the plaintiff let the defendant have various sums of her own money, amounting in the whole to $1,200, of which sum $700 has not been repaid. The value of the defendant's property, which consists of real estate, is not less than $10,000. Substantially all the property the plaintiff owns is two small houses, from which she receives an income of from $14 to $20 per month when rented, and she is obliged to depend in part, as before her marriage, upon a son by a former husband for her support. It did not appear that during the period of the parties' cohabitation the defendant acquired any property, or made any profit from his farm over and above his living expenses. The complaint contained allegations of undue influence on the part of the defendant, inducing marriage. These allegations the court found untrue. The defendant filed both an answer and a cross-complaint, in which he claimed judgment declaring said marriage void.
Eugene C. Dempsey and William H. Cable, for appellant.
Charles W. Murphy, for appellee.
PRENTICE, J. (after stating the facts). The court below having found that the plaintiff and defendant had entered into a void marriage contract, that the defendant was the owner of real estate of the value of $10,000, and that $1,100 was a just and equitable portion of his estate to assign to the plaintiff, and other incidental facts, rendered judgment declaring said marriage void, and that the defendant pay the plaintiff $1,100 as alimony.
No question is made as to the power of the General Assembly to authorize such judicial action. The defendant's main contention, expressed in several forms in the reasons of appeal, is to the general effect that such authority has not been given. Whatever authority there may be is contained in section 4502 of the General Statutes of 1902, where it is provided that, "whenever from any cause any marriage is void, the superior court may, upon complaint, pass a decree declaring such marriage void, and may thereupon make such order in relation to any children of such marriage, if such there be, and concerning alimony, as it might make in a proceeding for a divorce between such parties if married." The defendant claims that this statute provides in terms for the allowance of alimony and nothing else, and that, as the allowance of alimony assumes the existence of a legal marriage, there is no justification in the statute for the court's action in the present case. It is doubtless true the common-law use of the term "alimony" restricted its application to allowances made by and to persons between whom there bad been a lawful intermarriage, and that careful legal definitions so describe it. It is suggestive in this connection, however, to observe that never, we believe, during the long history of our divorce legislation, did the word "alimony" appear in the sections providing that allowances might be made to a wife in or in connection with divorce proceedings until the act of 1895, p. 509, c. 127, provided for alimony pendente lite, and to-day the allowance which may be made as an incident of divorce granted is described, as it has been, as an assignment to the wife of a part of the estate of the husband. In indices, judicial opinions, and legal parlance this assignment has been termed "alimony." The statutes which have authorized it have, however, never in terms so called it. The word "alimony," we believe, first appears in our legislation in the year 1877 (Pub. Acts 1877, pp. 155, 190, cc. 14, 76), when two statutes were enacted in which it was used. One was the original of the section under review; the other an act authorizing attachments. It is clear, therefore, that when the General Assembly in 1877 authorized, and now in said section 4562, Gen. St. 1902, authorizes, decrees concerning alimony, as in...
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