Case Name: RICHARDS v. FRIEDLY
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1834-11
Citations: 1 Wright 753
Docket Number: 
Parties: RICHARDS v. FRIEDLY.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases at law and in chancery, decided by the Supreme court of Ohio, during the years 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834.
Volume: 1
Pages: 781–781

Head Matter:
RICHARDS v. FRIEDLY.
Chancery — seduction—setting case for hearing on bill and answer.
"When a case is set for hearing on bill and answer, the answer is taken as true. Relief will not be decreed where the conduct of the complainant is against good morals.
Chancery. The case was formerly before the court on a demurrer to the bill: (see ante 167, where the case is stated.) The defendant having now filed his answer, denying all fraud, admitting the giving the note, and that all of it remains unpaid but eighteen dollars, and alleging that he was young and inexperienced, and the complainant a widow several years his senior: that he was passing the house in the road, when she called him in, shut the door, and then threw herself on the bed and asked him to come to her, telling him there was no one about the house, and he need not fear any harm from coming to her, whereupon he went to bed -with her, &c. In seven months afterwards she had twins, swore them upon him, and had him arrested, and while under arrest he gave the note. He called afterwards several times to pay a little on the note as he earned it. The last time he called, she told him it was unconscionable to make him pay, and asked him to marry her — he replied he never would marry a woman that held such a note upon him. She then said it was wrong to keep it, and then took the note from the drawer and burnt it up. He then left her, supposing himself clear, and has never seen her since. The cause is set for hearing on bill and answer.

Opinion:
BY THE COURT.
Every allegation in the bill, on which the demurrer was overruled at the last term, is negatived by the answer, and a state of case made, equally shocking to good morals and disgraceful to the complainant. This state of case we must [754 take as true, as the case is set for hearing on the bill and answer. Let the bill be dismissed at the complainant's costs.