40 A.2d 186 | Conn. | 1944
The plaintiff brought this action upon the ground of intolerable cruelty. The defendant filed a cross-complaint charging the plaintiff with adultery. The trial court found the issues for the plaintiff on both complaints. The defendant has appealed, assigning error in the finding and in rulings on evidence. In view of our conclusion that there was harmful error in a ruling on evidence, we discuss that assignment alone. *390
In a series of questions the plaintiff was allowed, on cross-examination of the defendant, to bring out the fact that he had been married before and that his marriage had been terminated after three years by a divorce obtained by his former wife on the ground of intolerable cruelty. No objection was made to the method of proof of these facts. The ground was that the evidence was immaterial. The plaintiff expressly claimed the questions were for the purpose of showing "cruelty or tendency toward cruelty" on the part of the defendant. Baldly stated the purpose of the evidence was to prove that the defendant was guilty of intolerable cruelty to his present wife because he had been adjudged to have been guilty of such cruelty to his former wife. In Kilpatrick v. Kilpatrick,
What is of greater importance, the natural effect of such evidence was to impugn the character of the defendant both as a husband and as a witness. "In a civil action the character or reputation of a party is deemed by the law to be irrelevant in determining the merits of the controversy, although in the popular estimation few facts are as persuasive or potent as this one in weighing the claims of the respective participants in any transaction. In the eyes of the law, the inferences which might be drawn from evidence of character and reputation of the parties are too vague, uncertain and unreliable to be worthy of consideration in determining the merits, however just and reasonable such inferences may seem to the lay mind." Jones, Evidence (4th Ed.), 148. The "business of the court is to try the case and not the man." Thompson v. Church, 1 Root 312; Humphrey v. Humphrey,
The finding of the trial court contains no recitation of the fact of the earlier divorce, and we may not know what weight it gave the evidence in its decision. We must assume, however, that the court, having ruled that the evidence was material, weighed it with the other evidence in arriving at its conclusion. Bailey v. Bobecki,
There is error, the judgment is set aside and a new trial is ordered.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.