Case ID: mass_8/html/0086-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Huldah Legg versus Levi Legg.
    After a divorce a vinculo had been decreed by the Supreme Court of the state of Vermont, the wife brought her action here, to recover of the husband the proceeds of certain promissory notes given to her before the marriage, which were received by him after the divorce; and she had judgment: the court refusing parole evidence, that the court of Vermont, in settling the wife’s alimony, took into consideration the said proceeds as belonging to the husband when they should be received by him.
    Assumpsit for five hundred dollars had and received by the de fendant to the plaintiff’s use.
    At the trial, which was had upon tur' general issue, at the last April term in this county, before Sedgwick, J., it was agreed that the parties bad intermarried; and an authenticated copy of a decree "of the Supreme Court of the state of Vermont was produced by the plaintiff, annulling the marriage contract between her and the defendant, and granting her a certain sum by way of alimony.
    Before the marriage, certain promissory notes were given to the plaintiff, which were not discharged during the coverture. After the dissolution of the marriage, the defendant, having those notes in possession, received thereon of the promisors money to the amount for which the verdict was rendered ; the same being taken for the plaintiff, by direction of the judge, who sat at the trial, subject to the opinion of the Court upon the following objections made by the defendant’s counsel, which were overruled by the judge.
    1. It was objected that the decree of divorce was not sufficient evidence of the dissolution of the marriage of the parties, to prove that the plaintiff was thereby entitled to avail herself, in her own right, of the choses in action, * which belonged to her before the intermarriage; but that the defendant, that divorce notwithstanding, was authorized by law to receive money on the said notes of hand, and to retain the same to his own use.
    2. It was offered to be proved, on the part of the defendant by parole evidence, that the court in the state of Vermont, in the decree of alimony, took into consideration the above-mentioned promissory notes as belonging to the defendant; and that the money due thereon would, when collected, be his property. But the judge, believing that parole testimony was incompetent to control the manifest import of the decree, rejected the evidence offered.
    The defendant moved for a new trial for the foregoing reasons, which were stated in the judge’s report, and the cause stood over upon that motion.
    
      Blake for the defendant.
    The marriage being admitted, it follows that the wife can maintain no action against the husband, unless a dissolution of that marriage is shown, nor unless it be shown that the decree of such dissolution was authorized by the laws of the state of Vermont, and that the authority of the court in that case was exercised with due discretion. The marriage was, ipso facto, a gift of all the wife’s personal chattels to the husband ; and it is necessary for the plaintiff’s recovery to satisfy the Court, that an effect of the divorce was to revest in her the property of the promissory notes, the proceeds of which she demands in this action. Although the law of the place where contracts are made may properly be applied to the construction of such contracts, it does not follow, nor is it known that the principle has been carried so far as to apply that law to the dissolution of a contract, especially of the marriage contract, so peculiar in its nature, and the annulling of which for slight causes is so contrary to the policy of óur own laws.
    The plaintiff’s right to recover being bottomed wholly on the decree of divorce, it was certainly competent to the defendont to prove that in making that decree, and in*award- ' ing to the plaintiff her alimony, the court had reference to the notes as belonging to the defendant in virtue of the dissolution of the marriage. If the fact thus offered to be proved were established, the plaintiff’s recovery in this action would be contrary to every principle of law, as well as equity. In the case of Ganer vs. Lady Gainsborough, 
       parole evidence was admitted by Lord Kenyon, to prove the law of a foreign country, as it related to the proceedings in the courts of that country, and this as to the effect of a divorce which was alleged to have taken place there.
    
      Hastings for the plaintiff.
    
      
      
        Peake’s N. P. Reports, 17.—1 P. Will. 431, S. P.
    
   By the Court.

We cannot judicially take notice of the laws of Vermont. By our own law, marriage is an absolute gift to the husband of all the wife’s personal chattels in possession ; and so it is also of choses in action, if he reduces them into possession by receiving or recovering them at law. But on the dissolution of the marriage, either by the death of the husband, or by a divorce a vinculo, choses in action, not reduced to possession during the coverture, remain the property of the wife. We must presume the laws of Vermont to be similar to ours on this subject, unless the contrary is regularly shown. Parole evidence respecting the grounds of the judgment of the court, in awarding alimony to the plaintiff, was very properly rejected by the judge at the trial: his direction was correct, and the verdict must stand.

Judgment on the verdict.