Wilder v. Reno, 490 Civil.
| Decision Date | 11 March 1942 |
| Docket Number | No. 490 Civil.,490 Civil. |
| Parties | WILDER v. RENO, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
John R. K. Scott, of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.
M. Louise Rutherford and H. J. Woodward, Deputy Attys. Gen., for defendants.
This is a civil action brought by George E. Wilder, a citizen of the State of Illinois, against the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the District Attorney of Philadelphia County within this Commonwealth, to enjoin the defendants from enforcing against plaintiff and his attorney the provisions of the Pennsylvania Act of Assembly, 1935, P.L. 450, as amended, 48 P.S.Pa. § 170 et seq., which attempts to abolish causes of action for alienation of affections of husband or wife, and to make it a misdemeanor for any person or attorney to file, cause to be filed, threaten to file, or threaten to cause to be filed in any court in this Commonwealth, any pleading or paper setting forth or seeking to recover upon any cause of action abolished or barred by the Act, whether such cause of action arose within or without this Commonwealth. The penalty attempted to be imposed for violating any provision of the Act is a fine of not less than one hundred ($100) dollars nor more than one thousand ($1,000) dollars, or imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than five years.
Plaintiff's complaint alleges that he has a cause of action for alienation of his wife's affections against a citizen of this Commonwealth, and that he desires to institute a proceeding at law in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to recover damages suffered by such alienation. This proceeding was instituted to forestall a threatened criminal prosecution of plaintiff and his attorney in the event such action were filed.
After careful consideration of all the evidence and the briefs filed by the parties, the court has decided that the injunction must be denied, for the reason that there is a complete lack of evidence or information of any other sort to show any threat by the defendant or any of their agents to prosecute the plaintiff or any one else in connection with any specific clause or paragraph of the prohibitions contained in the Act in question.
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...very purpose of courts is to defeat unjust prosecutions and to secure the rights of parties in just prosecutions .... Wilder v. Reno, 43 F.Supp. 727, 729 (D.Pa.1942). It is noteworthy that our research has disclosed only one case in which there was evidence that the plaintiff and the "alien......
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Bearbower v. Merry
...to other types of litigation. After all, "the very purpose of courts is to separate the just from the unjust causes." Wilder v. Reno, 43 F.Supp. 727, 729 (M.D.Pa.1942); see Manistee Bank & Trust Co. v. McGowan, 394 Mich. 655, 674, 232 N.W.2d 636, 644 We hold the action for alienation of aff......
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Goldberg v. Musim
...supra) have upheld them, and the limited Pennsylvania act has also been sustained, McMullen v. Nannah, 49 Pa.Dist. & Co.R. 516 (1944), but see Wilder v. Reno, 43 F.Supp. 727 (D.C.Pa.1942). Apparently such statutes have not yet been tested constitutionally in Alabama (Alabama Statutes, Tit. ......
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Smith v. Hill, 34540
...cause of action may be used, and at times is used, by blackmailers and extortionists.' Similarly, the Federal court in Wilder v. Rono, D.C., 43 F.Supp. 727, held that the potentiality of abuse did not justify an exercise of the police power to bar breach of promise and alienation of affecti......