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195 Pa. 438

Wolf's Case

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided April 23, 1900

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1900-04-23

<p>Appeal, No. 423, Jan. T., 1899, by Mary Brink, from order of C. P. Luzerne Co., Oct. T., 1898, No. 1163, striking off traverse to inquisition in the matter of Solomon Wolf, an alleged lunatic.</p> <p>Traverse of inquisition in lunacy.</p> <p>From the record it appeared that on September 21, 1898, a petition in lunacy was filed against Solomon Wolf. On October 10, an inquisition was filed finding that Wolf was then, and had been for twenty years, a lunatic without lucid intervals.</p> <p>On November 21, Mary Brink had brought a civil action against Wolf, per quod servitium amisit, for the seduction of her minor daughter.</p> <p>On January 4, 1899, Mary Brink filed a traverse to the inquisition. Subsequently, the court in an opinion by Woodward, P. J., made absolute a rule to strike off the traverse.</p> <p>Error assigned was the order of the court.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1900-04-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently September 1983

4 state decisions

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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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Per Curiam,

¶1We are clearly of the opinion that the right to traverse an inquisition of lunacy which is confined to “ persons aggrieved ” by the terms of our Act of May 8,1874, P. L. 122, Purd. D. 1272,. pi. 16, includes only persons related to the lunatic by blood or marriage, and persons having an interest in his estate. The' very point was ruled by the prerogative court of New Jersey in Rorback v. Van Blarcom, 5 C. E. Green (N. J.), 461, under a provision of the constitution of that state which contains similar language to our own law of 1874. This conclusion is strongly fortified by the consideration- that the proceedings in lunacy are not conclusive upon strangers, and the fact of lunacy is no defense in an action for the recovery of compensatory damages for a tort in which wrongful or malicious intent is not an essential element: Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Showalter, 3 Pa. Superior Ct. 452. The exhaustive opinion of Rice, P. J., in that case contains a full review of the whole subject.

¶2Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed at the cost of the appellant.

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