Hahn v. Bealor

Citations

• 132 Pa. 242
• 19 A. 74

Syllabus

<p>1. When the issue is whether a husband has cause for leaving his wife, declarations made by her, or manifestations of a distressed condition of mind, a week after his departure, cannot be regarded as part of the res geste, and are not admissible in evidence.</p> <p>2. In an action by a surviving husband, claiming an estate by the curtesy in land of which his wife died seised, the record of an order in the Court of Quarter Sessions, adjudging Mm, on complaint of the wife, to pay her a weekly allowance for maintenance,4s evidence persuasive of a prior wilful desertion by him, but not conclusive thereof.</p> <p>3. When it is shown that a husband who claims a curtesy estate in land of his deceased wife, deserted her for more than a year previous to her death, it is incumbent upon him to show that he had reasonable and lawful cause for such desertion; until he does so, it is presumptively wilful and malicious: Bealor v. Hahn, 117 Pa. 169.</p> <p>4. The reasonable and lawful cause which will justify a desertion, and prevent it from operating under the act of May 4, 1855, P. L. 430, to deprive a husband of his curtesy estate in Ms wife’s lands, must be something that under the law would have been sufficient to entitle him to a decree of divorce against her.</p> <p>5. Testimony showing that a wife on one occasion used words which might be construed as a threat to her husband to poison him, which, however, did not alarm him; and exhibiting a state of domestic infelicity, without any violence, actual or attempted, against the husband or Ms property, is insufficient to entitle him to a divorce upon the ground of cruel and barbarous treatment.</p> <p>S. In such a case, the fact that in a desertion proceeding against the husband, on complaint of the wife, wherein the husband testified as a witness in his own behalf, he made no mention while so testifying of any threat by Ms wife to poison him, is admissible as tending to show that a claim of such a threat, was an afterthought