Case ID: ny_236/html/0581-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Louise C. Smith, Respondent, v. William E. Smith, Appellant.
    
      Libel • — ■ sufficiency of complaint — statement by divorced husband in application by him for marriage license that he was not a divorced person.
    
    
      Smith v. Smith, 205 App. Div. 871, affirmed.
    (Argued May 28, 1923;
    decided June 12, 1923.)
    Appeal, by permission, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered February 2, 1923, which affirmed an order of Special Term denying a motion by defendant for judgment on the pleadings. Plaintiff and defendant, wife and husband, were divorced in 1911. The complaint alleged that on June 18, 1921, the defendant filed in the office of the city clerk of the city of New York a sworn application for a marriage license which contained the following matter alleged to have been libelous: “ Number of marriage, 1; is applicant a divorced person, No;” that this affidavit became a public record and the details thereof were published to the world in various newspapers; that defendant thereby intended to mean that the intended marriage was the first marriage; that he had never been married to the plaintiff and had never been divorced from her; that the plaintiff had never been his wife and that during the time she lived with him she had been living with him as his mistress with a meretricious relationship.
    
      I. T. Flatto for appellant.
    
      Frederic C. Scofield and Ralph W. Thomas for respondent.
   Order affirmed, with costs; question certified answered in'the affirmative; no opinion.

Concur: Hiscock, Ch. J., Hogan, Cardozo, Pound, McLaughlin, Crane and Andrews, JJ.