Case ID: how-pr_35/html/0118-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Miller, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

COURT OF APPEALS.
    Russel F. Hicks, respondent agt. Amariah H. Bradner, appellant.
    In an action for damages for crirmnal conversation by the defendant with the plaintiff ’9 wife, the wife cannot be a witness against her husband.
    
      January Term, 1868.
    This action was brought to^recover damages of defendant for criminal conversation with the plaintiff’s wife, and tried at the Steuben circuit in October, 1860, when a verdict was rendered in favor of the defendant.
    Exceptions were taken upon the trial to the rulings of the judge admitting evidence-objected to, and judgment having been entered upon the verdict, the plaintiff appealed to the general term of the supreme court; a new trial was ordered and the defendant appealed to the court of appeals.
   Miller, J.

It is evident that the judge erred upon the trial in allowing the wife of the plaintiff to. be sworn as a witness and to testify against her husband. At common law the husband and wife could not be witnesses for or against each other,, and this-rule of the common law is not changed by the provisions of the Code which abrogate the disqualification of witnesses by reason of their being parties. These provisions, as they existed when this action was tried, have no application to a ease like the one at bar, as has been held in numerous adjudications of the court. (Hasbrouck agt. Vandervoort, 5 Seld. 153; Smith agt. Smith, 15 How. 165 ; Marsh agt. Potter, 30 Barb. 506; Macondray agt. Wadle, 26 Barb. 612; White agt. Stafford, 38 Barb. 419; Carpenter agt. White, 46 Barb. 291; Rivenburgh agt. Rivenburgh, 47 Barb, 419.) As this error of the judge was sufficient to authorize the general term to grant a new trial, it is not necessary to examine the other questions raised, and the judgment of the general term must be affirmed.

All concur..

Judgment affirmed.