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136 Mass. 310

Morrison v. Morrison

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 4, 1884

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1884-01-04

Libel for divorce, on the ground of adultery, filed August 21, 1882. Hearing before G. Allen, J., who refused to grant a divorce, and entered a decree dismissing the libel; and thereupon, at the request of the libellant, reported, for the consideration of the full court, the facts found by him, as follows: “The adultery was proved as charged; and the remaining question was whether a divorce should be refused on the ground' of the connivance of the libellant.

Relies on Sparhawk v. Sparhawk · Orrok v. Orrok

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1884-01-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently December 1950

17 state decisions

6018841890190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Colburn, J.

¶1Connivance can usually be proved only by proving facts, from which, with their circumstances, it may be inferred.

¶2The judge who tried this case found, upon the evidence before him, certain facts from which, with the circumstances, he found that the libellant, from the time that his suspicions were first excited, was willing in his own mind that his wife should commit adultery, provided he could thereby obtain a divorce; and that he expected that she would commit adultery, and that he should obtain proof of it, and thus be enabled to procure a divorce. The finding that this was the state of the libellant’s mind, together with his conduct towards his wife and her suspected paramour, after his suspicions were excited, were sufficient to warrant the finding of connivance. Phillips v. Phillips *3144 Notes of Cases, 523. Boulting v. Boulting, 3 Sw. & Tr. 329, 2 Bish. Mar. & Div. §§ 5, 6.

¶3It is not for us to determine whether we should have drawn the same inference. There being facts and circumstances from which the inference might fairly be drawn, we cannot determine the weight and effect of the evidence, and revise the finding. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct v. Chandler, 9 Allen, 159, 166. Sparhawk v. Sparhawk, 120 Mass. 390.

¶4. The libellant saw fit to go to trial without an answer. If he had asked for an answer, and it was not voluntarily furnished, the court would undoubtedly, upon motion, have ordered one filed. Orrok v. Orrok, 1 Mass. 341. He does not appear to have expressed any surprise at the evidence, or the defence taken at the trial, and it is now too late to object that no answer was filed.

¶5Decree affirmed.

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