149 N.Y.S. 103 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1914
Action (1) to annul a marriage and (2) to compel the defendant to return to the plaintiff herein certain property obtained by her through deeds and separation agreements. The complaint alleges that at the time the plaintiff and the defendant intermarried the defendant had a lawful husband living; that she had entered into a common law marriage agreement in 1904, in the state of Missouri with one Symbert Sommer, from whom no divorce had been secured. It is alleged that the property in question should be restored to the plaintiff for these reasons: That it was obtained from him by the defendant (a) through fraud and undue influence; (b) through the mental incompetency of the plaintiff, and (c) through his ignorance of the law of the state of Missouri and of the fact that under the law the defendant had become the wife of Symbert Sommer-. There is no dispute as to the facts in the case. The plaintiff and the defendant were married in the city hall on the 26th day of August, 1910. At that time he was a widower, sixty-five years of age, and was possessed of property to the value of nearly $1,000,000. The defendant was a widow of no means, forty-seven years of age, and had been living for several years as the mistress of Symbert Sommer. Prior to the marriage the plaintiff and the defendant had entered into meretricious relations, and shortly thereafter, and during a serious illness, the plaintiff not only transferred valuable real and personal property to the defendant, but he made a will entirely in her favor. It is to the defendant’s credit—if such a term can be applied in any sense to her course of conduct in this case — that she fully informed the defendant of the character of life that she was leading with Sommer; that she told him she had lived during a period of time
Judgment accordingly.