Case ID: me_29/html/0281-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Shepley, C. J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Nathaniel Ricker, Libelant, versus Jane Ricker.
    The additional act of 3847, “respecting divorce,” was not a repeal of any part of ch. 89, of R. S.
    It only introduced some new causes, not previously provided for, which should justify divorces.
    Desertion by one party, of less than five years continuance, is not a ground for divorce.
    This libel for a divorce was filed 8th March, 1849. ft alleges that the parties were intermarried on the 7th Dec. 1848, and resided at the libelant’s house in Limerick until the 23d of the same December. On that day she went to an adjoining town to visit her friends, requesting her husband to come and bring her home in the evening; that he accordingly went for her in the evening, but she utterly refused to return with him ; that again on the 26th of same December, and on 10th Jan. 1849, he went for her, and she refused to return with him, and declared that it was her intention never to return and reside at his home in Limerick.
    The libelee was defaulted.
    
      McDonald, for plaintiff.
    This process is founded upon the statute of July 13, 1847. That act was intended to remedy some serious defects in the R. S. For that purpose, it gives full power to the Court, in the exercise of a sound discretion, to grant divorces. This case calls most manifestly for relief, and shows the wisdom of the new enactment.
    But if that statute cannot reach this case, the Court is respectfully requested to consider the case in connection with R. S. ch. 89, sect. 2, clause 6, relative to marriages procured by fraud.
   The Court, by

Shepley, C. J.,

orally.

The enactment of 1847 was not intended to repeal any part of ch. 89, of the R. S. It only introduced some classes of causes which should justify a divorce, which were not embraced in the former law. That law was not altered as to causes of divorce, which had already been prescribed.

If all the facts alleged in the libel, are to be considered as proved, they, at most, only show a desertion ; and that desertion was much less than the five years continuance, required by the R. S. Libel dismissed.