Humphrey v. Pope

54 P. 847, 122 Cal. 253, 1898 Cal. LEXIS 567
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 8, 1898
DocketSac. No. 461
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 54 P. 847 (Humphrey v. Pope) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Humphrey v. Pope, 54 P. 847, 122 Cal. 253, 1898 Cal. LEXIS 567 (Cal. 1898).

Opinion

CHIPMAN, C.

Action for damages. A demurrer to the amended complaint was sustained without leave to further amend, and judgment was given in favor of defendant, from which this appeal is prosecuted. The complaint alleged that at all the times mentioned in the complaint plaintiff and one W. G. Humphrey were husband and wife; on the-day of September, 1896, the husband willfully deserted plaintiff, and by reason of said desertion plaintiff “is living separate and apart from him”; defendant, “willfully and wrongfully intending to injure plaintiff and to deprive her of the affection, support, comfort, fellowship, society, aid, and assistance of ... . the said husband, wrongfully, .... at divers days and times before the commencement of this action, and while such marriage existed, alienated and destroyed the affection of the .... husband of this plaintiff .... and did illegally persuade, entice, and abduct said W. G. Humphrey from plaintiff, whereby plaintiff has wholly lost and been deprived of the assistance, comfort, fellowship, society, aid, and support of ... . her said husband, to all of which plaintiff during all said time was entitled .... and otherwise would have had, but for th.e illegal persuasion, conversation, and the enticement, abduction, and doings and [255]*255actions of defendant, as hereinbefore recited.” The demurrer was upon several grounds: 1. Plaintiff had not legal capacity to sue; 2. Insufficiency of facts to constitute a cause of action; 3. The complaint is ambiguous, unintelligible, and uncertain.

1. Respondent contends that plaintiff could not bring the action without making her husband a party plaintiff.

The amended complaint was filed June 7, 1897, and the alleged desertion occurred in September, 1896. The statutory period required to make the desertion cause of divorce had not elapsed. In Andrews v. Runyon, 65 Cal. 629, the wife sued in her own name alone for personal injuries. It was objected that she could not do so, but that the husband must be joined. It was held that section 370 of the Code of Civil Procedure authorized the suit, because when commenced she was living separate and apart from her husband by reason of his desertion of her. (Baldwin v. Second Street Cable R. R. Co., 77 Cal. 390.)

Section 370 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires the husband to be joined when a married woman is a party, which is the common-law rule; but the section introduces certain exceptions, and among them: “3. When she is living separate and apart from her husband by reason of his desertion of her, or by agreement in writing entered into between them, she may sue or be sued alone.” It was held under the provisions of the act of March 9, 1870 (Stats. 1869-70, p. 226), in Tobin v. Galvin, 49 Cal. 34, that the words “while living separate and apart from her husband” do not mean a temporary absence of the wife. There must have been an abandonment on the part of the husband or wife, or a separation which was intended to be final. The code adds to the language of the former act the words “by reason of his desertion of her.” The desertion through which comes the separation and forms the exception we do not think must necessarily have continued for the statutory period entitling the wife to a divorce. But the desertion must be such as is given as a cause for divorce by section 95 of the Civil Code, towit, a voluntary separation with intent to desert. The two sections should be read together to ascertain the meaning of the word “desertion” in section 370 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Section 107 of the Civil Code fixes the time the desertion must continue; but what is willful desertion [256]*256is defined by section 95 of the Civil Code. It would be a harsh rule and an unwarranted construction of the statute to hold that a husband may willfully separate from his wife with intent to desert, and yet that she could not maintain an action for a personal injury to herself if it occurred at any time within one year after the husband’s desertion and abandonment of her. We think the allegations of the complaint sufficient upon this point.

2. The more serious question is that raised by respondent for insufficiency of facts alleged. The argument is that personal rights are defined by section 43 of the Civil Code, and include the right to protection from injury to personal relations and that such injuries are carefully defined by section 49 of the Civil Code, and are entirely different from injuries to the person such as bodily restraint, bodily harm, defamation, which are enumerated in section 43 of the Civil Code.

Section 49 reads: “The rights of personal relation forbid: 1. The abduction of a husband from his wife, or of a parent from his child; 2. The abduction or enticement of a wife from her husband, of a child from a parent or from a guardian entitled to its custody, or of a servant from his master.” Respondent claims that abduction means something different from enticement, and that this is recognized by section 49 because the word “enticement” is omitted from clause 1, but is included in clause 2.

The word “abduct” is from the Latin ab-duco, to lead away. Abduction is the talcing away a wife, child, or ward, by fraud and persuasion, or open violence. (Carpenter v. People, 8 Barb. 606; State v. George, 93 N. C. 570.) In private or civil law it is the act of taking away a man’s wife by violence or persuasion. (3 Stephen’s Commentaries, 536.) In reason the wife should be as much entitled to sue for violation of her personal right, where her husband has been taken away from her by enticement, if such right exist at all, as should the husband when his wife has been enticed from him. Ordinarily, the injury is greater to the wife than to the husband. We are unwilling to give a construction to this section which would limit the wife to an action when her husband has been forcibly taken from her. Our criminal statute as to the crime of abduction for purposes of [257]*257prostitution uses the words “takes away” for the word “abduct,” and it has been held “that a physical carrying away is not required to constitute the taking, but that inducements are sufficient.” (People v. Demousset, 71 Cal. 611.) In the decisions of courts generally, the word “abduction” and the words “taking away” are used as the equivalent of each other, as we think they in fact are. We are unwilling to impute to the legislature any intention to give to the husband a right of action for the abduction of his wife under clause 2 of section 49 of the Civil Code, of which the wife is deprived by the phraseology of clause 1. The abduction meant in both clauses we think should be held to be the same. And this brings us to the question, Has the wife an action against another woman for enticing the husband away from and destroying his affection for her?

It was decided as early as the nineteenth year of George II, in Winsmore v. Greenbank, Willes, 577, and has been the law ever since, that the husband has an action for enticing away his wife ■—for taking away from him the comfort and society of his wife (per quod consortium amisit), and the action was invented to compensate the lonely and forsaken husband. But at common law the wife had no right of property in any damages recovered on her account for any cause, and was given no right of action to recover them. She was not only inferior to her husband, but she had no personal identity separate from him. As the wife was then regarded, the courts, with perfect consistency, in denying her this action simply added this to her many other disabilities.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
54 P. 847, 122 Cal. 253, 1898 Cal. LEXIS 567, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/humphrey-v-pope-cal-1898.