Case Name: Hannah Holland, Libellant, versus Richard Holland
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1806-10
Citations: 1 Tyng 154
Docket Number: 
Parties: * Hannah Holland, Libellant, versus Richard Holland.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 2
Pages: 148–148

Head Matter:
* Hannah Holland, Libellant, versus Richard Holland.
Upon a libel for a divorce, evidence of the confession of adultery by the party charged, and of his having made satisfaction to the husband of the particeps criminis, will not support the libel.
This was another libel for the like cause as the last case. The only evidence offered to prove the adultery was the confession of the respondent that he had committed the crime with a certain married woman, and had made a pecuniary satisfaction for the injury to the husband.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The rule is established by uniform practice that the confession of the party, unsupported by other evidence, is not sufficient to ground a divorce upon. To vary from this rule would be opening a door for the collusion of parties, and be attended with consequences very mischievous to society. If the confession of either party was sufficient evidence to obtain a divorce a vinculo, a contract of marriage would be at the will of both the parties.
The divorce was refused.
Baxter vs. Baxter, 1 Mass. Rep. 346. — Betts vs. Betts, 1 Johns. Ch. R. 197.