Irvin v. Irvin

Citations

• 169 Pa. 529
• 32 A. 445
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 1127

Syllabus

<p>Contract — Illegality of contract — Divorce.</p> <p>It is not against public policy for a wife to enter into a written contract with a third person, for a valuable consideration, that in any proceeding she may institute against her husband for divorce she will not assign any other reason therefor than the desertion of her by her husband.</p> <p>A wife having refused to join her husband in a deed of lands owned by her husband, subsequently entered into a written agreement with her husband’s brother by which, in consideration of her joining in the deed, she was to be paid by the brother a certain sum of money. It was also stipulated that in ány proceeding she might institute against her husband for divorce, she would not assign anjr other reason therefor than the desertion of her by her husband. Part of the money was paid in cash, and part by note. In a suit upon the note the brother offered evidence that at the time the note was executed there was a parol agreement by the wife that the note was not to be paid until she had prosecuted to successful issue divorce proceedings against her husband. Held, that as the written agreement contained a sufficient consideration to sustain the note, the defendant could not set up the parol contract, although against public policy, to defeat the agreement.</p> <p>In such a case the integrity of the established written contract could not be affected by what, if true, was a collateral undertaking to do an unlawful act. The written contract did not rest on a vicious consideration, which struck at the contract itself so that it never had a legal entity. It rested on a perfectly good consideration, wholly independent of the merely collateral promise. No verdict against the contract could on such evidence be sustained.</p>