271 Pa. 271 | Pa. | 1921
Opinion by
This appeal is by defendant from judgment entered for plaintiff upon a verdict in an action of ejectment, in which plaintiff claimed title -as sole heir of Clarissa Marshall, who died seized in September, 1915; while defendant claimed a life estate, as her surviving husband, and also that her name was Clarissa Marshall Carr. She and defendant lived together at Wilkes-Barre and cohabited practically as husband and wife from about the year 1900 until her death, and defendant testified that they were married by a magistrate in Scranton on September 25, 1911, and he is corroborated by a marriage license and certificate. Plaintiff’s evidence tends to show that it was another woman, who impersonated his mother, to whom defendant was married at Scranton.
Clarissa kept a house of prostitution and, on cross-examination, defendant was asked if about the year 1892 he had not lived with another woman named Eagler, who also kept a house of prostitution at Wilkes-Barre. The objection of plaintiff’s counsel to this line of cross-examination was overruled and defendant answered in the affirmative. This forms the basis of the first and second assignments of error, which must be sustained. Defendant’s intimacy with the Eagler woman was entirely foreign to the questions here at issue and occurred years before he went to live with Clarissa. The only possible object of bringing it out was to discredit the defendant and his testimony, and for that purpose it was incompetent. It is well settled in ■ this State that a witness may not be cross-examined as to his alleged misconduct, or even criminal acts, entirely disconnected with the case on trial. A witness may be interrogated
It was not error to allow the cross-examination of defendant as to his relations with Clarissa before the alleged ceremonial marriage.
Shortly after such marriage she was arrested for keeping a bawdyhouse and, when taken before the magistrate, the evidence tended to show, both she and defendant stated on oath that she was a widow. If she so stated,
The record shows no exception taken by defendant to the charge, before verdict, but as his counsel thereafter averred he had asked for one, the trial judge sealed it for him nunc pro tunc. However, it was at most only a general exception and thereunder errors could be assigned to such matters only as were basic and fundamental (Sikorski v. Phila. & R. Ry. Co., 260 Pa. 243), and the excerpts from the charge called to our attention are not of that character.
The first and second assignments of error are sustained and thereupon the judgment is reversed and a venire facias de novo awarded.