Case ID: nh_65/html/0185-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Doe, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Sawyer, & a. v. Richards.
    When husband and wife live apart and he has a cause of divorce, he is not bound to support her.
    Assumpsit, for goods sold and delivered to the defendant’s wife. Facts agreed. Before the delivery of the goods the defendant had separated from his wife, leaving her at his house without providing for her support, and had filed a libel for divorce alleging extreme cruelty. The goods were groceries of which the wife was in need, and were delivered by the plaintiffs without authority from the defendant, and with notice that he had separated from his wife and had commenced a suit for a divorce. A divorce was afterwards decreed for the cause alleged.
    
      J. H. Andrews, for the plaintiffs.
    
      B. Gross, for the defendant.
   Doe, C. J.

If the defendant had a cause of divorce when he left his wife and when the goods were delivered, action cannot be maintained. By their living apart, public notice was given of the actual state of things. By extreme cruelty in violation of her marital duty, she would give him a cause of divorce; and during their separation he would be released from the duty of supporting her. The rule does not depend upon a distinction between such causes of divorce as adultery and extreme cruelty.

Case discharged.

Clark, J., did not sit: the others concurred.