Wahle v. Wahle

Citations

• 71 Ill. 510

Syllabus

<p>1. Husband and wife—when the wife is entitled to separate maintenance. To entitle a wife to a separate maintenance, she must show that she lives separate and apart from her husband without her fault. If she voluntarily abandons him, if she is compelled to abandon him on account of her adulter)- or her wicked conduct, she will not be entitled to a separate maintenance.</p> <p>2. Evidence—a judgment or decree is not evidence upon a question which is only collaterally drawn in question, nor to any matter incidentally cognizable, or where it is to be inferred from the'judgment only by argument or construction.</p> <p>3. Same — verdict of a jury against a husband seeking a divorce, not sufficient to establish the claim of the wife to a separate maintenance. A husband filed a bill for a divorce, on the ground of desertion, and the wife answered, justifying the desertion on the grounds of the cruelty and unkindness of the husband, and adultery on his part, and filed a cross-bill alleging the same facts, and praying for a separate maintenance; the issues upon the bill for divorce were submitted to a jury, and tl^eir verdict.was against the complainant, and thereupon the court decreed that the complainant’s bill be dismissed, and the cross-bill was continued for hearing until a subsequent term of court: Held, that, upon the subsequent. hearing of the cross-bill, the finding .of the jury upon the issues submitted upon the original bill was not sufficient evidence of the truth of the allegations of the cross-bill to entitle the wife to a decree for separate maintenance.</p> <p>4. Same—of a partieeps criminis in adultery. The evidence of a particeps criminis in adultery is, at best, liable to grave suspicion, and it should in no case be admitted, unless.it is pertinent to the issue, and the party against whom it is produced has been reasonably advised by the state of the pleadings, so that he may be prepared to meet it.</p> <p>5. Pleading- and evidence. On the hearing of a c