Strode v. Strode
| Decision Date | 08 February 1867 |
| Citation | 66 Ky. 227 |
| Parties | Strode vs. Strode. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
APPEAL FROM CAMPBELL CIRCUIT COURT.
J. R. HALLAM, J. F. HALLAM, and WADSWORTH & CAMPBELL, For Appellant.
E. W. HAWKINS, For Appellee.
The weight of evidence conduces very decidedly to the conclusion, that, when this action was instituted, appellee was a resident of Campbell county, in Kentucky; and the allegation that she was a resident of said county, omitting the words "in Kentucky," is sufficient for the purposes of this action, as the courts know judicially that there is such a county in Kentucky, and cannot assume that a plaintiff in an action, who alleges the county of Campbell to be her residence, and brings an action in that county, in this State, can mean that she is a resident of a county of that name in another State.
Appellant avers, in his answer, that, when he married appellee, he had a wife living in the State of Texas, from whom he had not been divorced. This fact he does not allege he ever disclosed to her, or that she knew it, or had the means of being informed on the subject. He concealed his marriage in Texas from her; she, therefore, believed appellant to be her lawful husband when she married him, and had no reason to doubt it until he disclosed in his answer that he had another wife. She was first deceived and then abandoned by him, as the best way, perhaps, in his opinion, to escape the consequence of his misconduct. She was under no disability; her former husband had then been absent from the State of his residence more than five years, and had not, within that period, been heard from she was, therefore, lawfully competent to enter into a marriage contract. (R. S., vol. 1, 380.)
But it is insisted for appellant that the marriage between these parties was void ab initio; that the sentence of nullity was only declaratory of their legal state and condition; and therefore appellee cannot be entitled to a judgment against him for alimony, or any allowance for a support; that he is not estopped to deny the validity of his marriage with her, and the case of Donnelly vs. Donnelly's heirs (8 B. Mon., 113) is not an authority to sustain the contrary doctrine.
In that case, Donnelly had a wife living in the State of Maryland when he married a woman in Kentucky, who, after his death, claimed dower in his estate.
The Maryland woman died some six or eight years before Donnelly did. After her death, he and the woman in Kentucky continued to cohabit as husband and wife, recognizing that relation as subsisting between them, with the understanding and reputation that they were husband and wife, and sustaining good characters, with no impediment to a lawful...
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