Eisenhard v. Schmoyer

Citations

• 69 Pa. Super. 289
• 1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 71

Syllabus

<p>• Husband and wife — Alienation of wife’s affections — Evidence.</p> <p>In an action by a husband to recover damages for the alienation of his wife’s affections, it is incumbent upon the plaintiff to prove that defendant was the acting moving cause of the separation of his wife from him, and that defendant exercised an improper influence as a pursuer wilfully and with intent to deprive plaintiff of the society and affections of his wife.</p> <p>In such a case the plaintiff is not entitled to recover where the evidence shows that defendant was the employer of plaintiff and boarded in his house; that while this relation existed plaintiff sold the house to defendant; that domestic friction developed between plaintiff and his wife, and defendant sided with the wife; that plaintiff several times expressed a desire that defendant should find another boarding house; that while defendant frequently went driving with the wife, they were always accompanied by her fourteen-year-old son, with one exception, and that was a trip to a near neighbor in daylight; that plaintiff moved out of the house pursuant to a notice to quit fr^m defendant who had remarked that the wife and her children need not go if they did not want to; and that the wife refused to leave with her husband.</p> <p>The acts of intimacy proven were not inconsistent with the relation of boarder, and the fact that the wife remained in defendant’s house created no liability, unless it appeared that she did so because of an improper influence exercised by defendant in derogation of her husband’s marital rights.</p>