Giles v. Giles

Decided January 27, 1876

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1876-01-27

This is an action under Laws 1874, ch. 66, § 1, (approved March 5, 1874,) which provides that “ whenever a married man shall be deserted by his wife, or a married woman shall be deserted by her husband, for the space of one year, * * * he or she may bring an action in the district court of the proper county, asking for a decree which shall debar him or her so deserting * * * from any right or estate, by the curtesy or in dower, * * * in or to his or her lands, and which will…

Relies on Burwell v. Tullis · Davidson v. Gaston

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-01-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently November 1948

11 state decisions

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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Berry, J.

¶1Unless the contrary clearly appears to have been intended by the legislature, statutes should be construed to be prospective in their scope and operation, and not retrospective. This is a familiar canon of construction. Burwell v. Tullis, 12 Minn. 572; Davidson v. Gaston, 16 Minn. 230 ; Sedgwick on Stat. & Const. Law, 2d ed., 160-173. In accordance with this rule we are of opinion that the clause, (found in Laws 1874, ch. 66, § 1,) “ whenever a married man shall be deserted by his wife,” refers to a future desertion — that is to say, to a desertion beginning after the chapter cited goes into effect. In other words, as respects the class of cases provided for in this clause, the law is purely prospective.

¶2Judgment reversed.