34 Vt. 532 | Vt. | 1861
It is claimed upon the above exceptions that the evidence was improperly admitted, for the reason, that while the alleged slander consisted in charging the plaintiff with having committed the crime of adultery, the evidence of character was not restricted to general character, in reference to the technical kind and legal quality of the act charged, which rendered the words slanderous and actionable. In other words, it is claimed that no evidence as to character was admissible, except such as tended to show that the plaintiff’s general character was bad in reference to the crime of adultery. We think the exception is not well founded. It is uniformly held, that, in this kind of action, the plaintiff puts in issue his character, so far as the amount of damage is concerned, in reference to the subject whereof the alleged slander is predicated. The act of such intercourse, as the words charged in this case, is made a crime, and is visited with an ignominious punishment by provision of the statute, contrary both to the common and ecclesiastical law': 4 Bl. Com. 6o.
Undoubtedly it is this provision of the statute that makes the words actionable per se. Without that provision, words charging illicit intercourse with a married woman would have no different effect, as constituting a cause of action, from words charging such'intercourse with an unmarried woman. The act, in its
Change the state of the case, by supposing that the plaintiff, being unmarried, by a course of licentious conduct towards unmarried females had acquired a general character as a licentious debauchee. Having such a character, should he get marriedj and soon thereafter be charged with an act of illicit intercourse with an unmarried female — the same kind of act with the same quality of subject, by practising which, before marriage, he had acquired his character, and which, while he was unmarried, was not criminal under the statute — it would present a rare
It seems clear, that the application of the established rule of law on this subject cannot be made to depend upon the accidental circumstance, that either party to the alleged act of illicit intercourse was married, and, by virtue of that circumstance, exclude evidence of the general character of the plaintiff for licentiousness, existing at the time the words were spoken, when such evidence is offered to affect the amount of damages which he should properly recover.
This view, in our apprehension, stands upon reasons that fully justify it, without the support of adjudged cases. Yet, as sustaining it, the case of Stone v. Varney, 7 Met. 86, and of Bowen v. Hall, 20 Vt. 232, may be referred to.
Judgment affirmed.