Court Opinion

ID: 9810656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:55:25.977484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:08.079877
License: Public Domain

Stacy, J.,
dissenting: The only point presented on this appeal is whether the defendant, a justice of the peace, performed the marriage ceremony in question “without a license being first delivered to him, as required by law.” C. S., 2499. It is said in the opinion of the Court that this means “an actual and not a constructive delivery of the license before the officer shall perform the ceremony”; and hence it necessarily excludes the delivery to another for the officer. I do not think the statute, as enacted by the Legislature, is quite so exacting. In the case at bar the defendant, by request, called up the local register of deeds over the telephone, acquainted him with the circumstances, and obtained from him a promise to issue the marriage certificate and to mail it direct to the defendant. This was in January, 1916, before the passage of Public Laws 1921, ch. 129, requiring health certificates, etc. Later, in a telephone conversation with the register of deeds, the justice of the peace was informed, and correctly so, that the license had been issued and properly mailed, and that it was “perfectly all right to go ahead and marry them.” Thereupon, the defendant performed the marriage ceremony.
Both of the officers, with full knowledge of the facts, understood and considered this to be a sufficient delivery of the license, “as required by law.” It was the method mutually adopted for its delivery by the one and its receipt by the other. Unquestionably, what took place amounted to an issuance of the license. It was said in Coley v. Lewis, 91 N. C., 21, that a marriage license was issued “when the instrument, complete in form, passes out of the register’s hands by his own act into the hands of another; and this, unaffected by directions as to terms for its subsequent use.” To like effect is the holding in Maggett v. Roberts, 112 N. C., 71. And it is a universal principle of law that a delivery by specific authorization to a designated agent or agency is a delivery to the principal. 18 0. J., 477; 1 Words and Phrases, 1279. The statute provides for such delivery as is “required by law,” and no more. The register of deeds, under the facts here disclosed, would not be permitted to say that he did not issue the license; and the justice of the peace *442would not be beard to deny tbat be received it, or tbat it was delivered to bim, prior to tbe marriage. “Delivery does not necessarily import an actual physical tradition of possession from one band to another.” Ins. Co. v. Hall, 210 Mass., 332.
It will be observed tbat neither tbe issuance of tbe certificate nor its delivery to tbe officiating officer is a prerequisite to tbe validity of tbe marriage. Maggett v. Roberts, supra. It is tbe status of tbe contracting parties tbat tbe State or society is primarily interested in, and not so much tbe manner and form of tbe “delivery” and return of tbe license. Can it be said tbat an officer who performs a marriage ceremony without first actually and physically having in bis hands tbe marriage certificate, when, at bis request, it has been duly delivered to and received by another for bim, would be subject to'the statutory penalty, and, therefore, guilty of a crime? I think not.