95 N.J.L. 224 | N.J. | 1920
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is a suit by a wife (who has died since the trial) for the alienation of her husband’s affections by the defendant, who is a widow. The jury found for the plaintiff. The appellant claims there should have been a non-suit or a direction of a verdict for the defendant. We think not.
There was, in our judgment, sufficient evidence to justify a finding by the jury that defendant had wrongfully and 'willfully attempted to alienate the affections of plaintiff’s husband, and had succeeded in so doing, and that it was done without the wife’s consent. Defendant was a woman of some
It is said, however, that this letter was harmless aud irrelevant because it never reached the husband (the wife opened it when the children brought it home from the post-office and then quietly kept it) and consequently it could not have alienated his affections. This criticism (ignoring the obvious fallacy of the suggestion that such a letter so intercepted is ever harmless) might have some force if the letter were the only evidence in the case. But considered in conjunction with the proved previous performances, the letter is quite illuminating and is certainly relevant.
There being, therefore, as before stated, evidence justifying a finding of a wrongful, willful and successful attempt by the defendant to seduce to herself the husband’s affections without the wife’s consent, and also ample proof of the wife’s consequent loss of her husband’s consortium, the mo-, tions for a nonsuit and for a direction of a verdict for the defendant were properly refused.
We have examined the other assignments of error raised by the appeal and find them without merit.
The judgment is affirmed.