Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

33 Me. 196

Ballard v. Russell

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided July 1, 1851

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1851-07-01

On Report, from Nisi Prius, Wells, J. presiding. Case for an injury to the female plaintiff, by mal-practice of the defendant, in attempting to reduce a fracture of the forearm and dislocation of the wrist. The husband prior to the injury had deserted the wife, and for eight years had made no provision for her support. He resided in the same town, and in co-habitation with another woman.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1851-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 1920

4 state decisions

2018511860187018801890190019101920decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Wells, J., orally. —

¶1It is suggested that the discharge by the husband to the defendant was obtained through fraud. The Court cannot yield to that suggestion. If the plaintiffs would have availed themselves of it, the question should have been submitted to the jury.

¶2By the common law, both husband and wife must join to *197maintain an action like the present. This case does not come within any exception to the principles stated. The husband has not abjured the realm; and the facts stated in the report of the case, do not deprive him of the power to control the action nor to discharge the cause of it.

¶3The statutes giving additional rights and remedies to married women, relate to property, and do not apply to this case. Hence the proposed amendment, by striking out the name of the husband, would be of no advantage to the wife.

¶4It appears that the husband, the day after he had discharged the cause of action, gave his wife a written power of attorney - to prosecute the claim for her own benefit. But the cause of action having been previously discharged, could not be revived by such an instrument.

¶5It results that the action cannot be maintained, and the plaintiffs must be called.

/33/me/196 · .json · Public domain