Case Name: Lois Washburn versus Cornelius Washburn
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1811-10
Citations: 7 Tyng 131
Docket Number: 
Parties: Lois Washburn versus Cornelius Washburn.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 8
Pages: 115–115

Head Matter:
Lois Washburn versus Cornelius Washburn.
Where a libel for a divorce a vinculo for adultery charged the crime as committed without the commonwealth, there being an appearance for the respondent, evidence was received of the fact committed at a place within the common wealth.
The libel in this case, which was for a divorce a vinculo lot adultery, alleged that the respondent had deserted the libellant, had left the commonwealth, and, during his absence, had committed the crime of adultery with a woman unknown to the libellant.
Mitchel, in support of the libel, offered evidence of adultery committed in Greenwich, in the county of Hampshire, and within the commonwealth.
B. Whitman, for the respondent,
objected to the admission of such evidence, as not comporting with the allegation in the libel.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The specific charges in a libel for a divorce for Ihe cause of adultery are required to. be made, if the fact be within the libellant's knowledge, in order that the accused party may not be surprised, and may be advertised of the subject of his defence. Perhaps it would be better in * all cases to hold the libellant strictly to those charges. But such has not heretofore been the practice of the Court; and where, as in this case, there is an appearance for the respondent, such strictness may be less necessary. _ The evidence is admitted.
Divorce decreed