Court Opinion

ID: 9807960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:22:18.622957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:30.283645
License: Public Domain

*223Shepherd, J.,
dissenting: I am unable to agree with my brethren that an order of arrest can be made in the present case. The action is brought upon a breach of promise of marriage, and it is well settled that in such an action the defendant cannot be arrested. Moore v. Mullen, 77 N. C., 327. The plaintiff, however, alleges that “ by reason of the belief she had in his (the defendant’s) honor and good faith and because of his contract and agreement to marry her at an early day, she was seduced,” etc. Under the liberal construction now given to pleadings, we may treat this as an action for seduction, but as it is conceded that at common law such an action cannot be prosecuted by the woman, it is first insisted, in order to sustain the order of arrest, that it is not an action for seduction, but for “fraud or deceit,” •or an “injury to the person,” within the provisions of The Code, § 291. Now, it is true that a defendant may be arrested in such actions, but when the facts constituting the actionable injury consist in that species of fraud or deceit or injury to the person known as “seduction,” it is difficult to understand how this latter specific and well defined cause of action can, for the purpose of meeting the exigencies of some “hard case,” be resolved into its constituent elements, and each of these made independent actionable injuries •entirely relieved of those incidents which invariably attend the peculiar cause of action of which they are component parts. I am very sure that the language referred to is confined to ordinary actions of fraud or deceit, etc., and that it has no application to those facts which constitute a cause of action for seduction. If this be not so, it is hard to explain the presence of the word “ seduction ” in the same statute. If the facts amounting to seduction are comprehended in the said language,- why, it máy be asked, was a particular provision made for the arrest of the defendant in an action for seduction? This, I think, is entirely conclusive of the question. I am, therefore, of the opinion that this action for *224the purposes of the motion for arrest, must be considered as an action for seduction alone and governed by the law applicable thereto. To hold otherwise would, it seems to me, result in inextricable uncertainty and confusion.
It is a well settled rule in the interpretation of statutes, that where words of definite signification are used, “ and there is no intention manifest that they are to be taken in a different sense, they are to be deemed employed in their known and defined common law meaning.” Sutherland on Statute Construction, § 291; Adams v. Turrentine, 8 Ired., 147.
It has also been settled by a number of decisions that the Code of Civil Procedure did not have the effect of conferring any cause of action that did not previously exist, but that it was simply what it purported to be, a method of procedure only. As was said by PearsoN, C. J., in Lee v. Pearce, 68 N. C., 76, the present Constitution-and subsequent legislation “ affects only mode of procedure and leaves the principles of law and equity intact. * * * In other words, the principles of both systems are preserved, the only charge being that these principles are applied and acted on in one Court and in one mode of procedure.” See also Katzenstein v. Railroad Co., 84 N. C., 688.
In the light of these principles, it would seem clear that when the. statute used the words “ In an action * * * for seduction” (The Code, § 291), it referred to that action as it existed at common law. If it were otherwise, it is difficult to account for the several actions which have been brought in the name of the father or step-father, since the enactment of The Code, and the citation with approval of cases decided by this Court under the former system. Kinney v. Laughenour, 89 N. C, 365. If the new procedure gave a right of action to the woman, how could anyone else, not being the “real party in interest,” have prosecuted such suits? It is evident that neither this Court, nor the profession, ever entertained the idea that such an important change had *225been wrought in the law. That the same view has been taken by the Courts of other “Code States,” is evident from the fact that it required positive legislation (as in the States of California, Indiana, and a few others) to confer a right of action upon the woman. Even in Kentucky, where it wag-enacted that “an-action for seduction might be maintained without any allegation or proof of the loss of service of the female by reason of the wrongful act of the defendant,” it was held that it did not give the right of action to any other persons than those who could maintain it at common law. Woodard v. Anderson, 9 Bush., 624.
The principle upon which a cause of action is denied the woman is embodied in the maxim volenti non fit injuria; but it is argued by counsel that this does not apply, because the consent, being procured by fraud, is no consent. It is sufficient to say, in reply to this position, that as far back as we know anything of the common law in reference to the action of seduction, and throughout the succeeding centuries, the contrary has beén held to be the law; and that it is universally conceded by the Courts of England and America, as well as the text-writers, that the principle we have mentioned is applicable to the action for seduction.
The learned Chief Justice GibsoN (2 Pa. St., 80), in reference to this very point, expresses -the consensus of judicial opinion in this and the mother country. He says: “Still, illicit intercourse is an act of mutual imprudence, and the law makes no distinction between the sexes as to the comparative infirmity of their common natures. A woman is not seduced against her consent, however basely it be attained; and the maxim volenti non fit injuria is applicable to her as to a husband whose consent to his own dishonor bars his action for criminal conversation. This maxim runs through a variety of actions, such as those for injury from mutual negligence, as for the recovering back money involuntarily paid where there was no debt, and some others: It extends *226oven to contracts in the forming of which the parties are equ'ally culpable, the consideration being immoral or illegal.”
ParsoNS, C. J., remarks that “she is a partaker of the crime and cannot come inlo Court, to obtain satisfaction for a supposed injury to which she was consenting.” Paul v. Frazier, 5 Mass., 71.
Mr. Bigelow says that “ at common law the child is not entitled to sue for her own seduction, since she has consented to the act.” Torts, 151.
The principle is so well established that further citation of authority is deemed to be unnecessary.
The counsel further contended, that the principle upon which the action is permitted the parent, upon the theory of master and servant, is but a fiction, and that “feigned issues” and fictions of law, as in the old action of ejectment, are abolished. The principle upon which the action is based was originally, and, indeed, still is based upon the relation of master and servant, but what has been generally criticised as fictitious, is the awarding to the parent of damages, not merely for loss of service, but also for his outraged feelings, although his action is based upon the relation of master alone.
Admitting, however, (what I do not think is true), that the action is based upon a fiction, and is embraced in the meaning of “feigned issues” as used in The Code, I am still unable to understand how the abolition of such a fiction can help the plaintiff. If, as we have seen, she has no cause of action, I cannot understand how the repeal of the “fiction” by which her parent is enabled to sue can confer any right of action upon her. If, then, the “ fiction ” is taken away, it must follow that there is no civil remedy whatever against the seducer. Neither ■doT see the force of the argument based upon the abolition of fictitious parties in the old action of ejectment. The lessor of the plaintiff had a cause of action based upon some right, and the former action of ejectment was but a convenient *227remedy by which that right could be asserted. In our case the woman never had a right of action, and if the fiction by which her parent can recover is abolished, the seducer, as we have seen, will be amenable to the criminal law only.
Very few of the States have ventured upon the experiment of bestowing a cause of action upon the woman in cases of seduction; but in several of them the seduction of an innocent woman under promise of marriage is, as in North Carolina, an indictable offence. This is as far as we have gone, and it has always been considered a grave question of public policy whether the woman should be permitted to sue and recover damages. The following from the distinguished Chief Justice ParsoNS suggests a doubt as to the wisdom of such a change, and at the same time supports the view which I have deemed it my duty to express in this case: “It has been regretted at the bar that the law has not provided a remedy for an unfortunate female against her seducer. Those who are competent to legislate on this subject will consider, before they provide this remedy, whether seductions will afterwards be less frequent, or whether artful women may not pretend to be seduced in order to obtain a pecuniary compensation. As the law now stands, damages are recoverable for a breach of promise of marriage, and if seduction has been practiced under color of that promise, the jury will undoubtedly consider it as an aggravation of the damages. So far the law has provided, and we do not profess to be wiser than the law.”