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34 N.H. 420

Tebbets v. Hapgood

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided January 15, 1857

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1857-01-15

Assumpsit, for medical services alleged to have been rendered for the defendant’s wife, Esther West. The defendant denied that Esther West was his wife, and, if she were, that the services were rendered under such circumstances as to make him liable. The plaintiff offered evidence tending to show that the defendant had cohabited with the said Esther West, and acknowledged her to be his wife some time before the services were rendered.

Relies on Pidgin v. Cram

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1857-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently February 2010

7 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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Perley, C. J.

¶1The husband is bound to maintain his wife suitably, and according to his circumstances in life, while they cohabit; and if they separate by mutual consent, and he make no provision for her, she will carry with her authority to pledge his credit for her maintenance. Clancey on Husband and Wife 28; Pidgin v. Cram, 8 N. H. 351; Allen v. Aldrich, 9 Foster 78. And so if the husband turn the wife out of doors, without fault on her part, she carries a like credit with her to charge the husband for her support. Clancey 28; Allen v. Aldrich, 9 Foster 78. And the burden of proof is on the husband to show that he has made other suitable provision for the wife, or that he has turned her away for sufficient cause. Pidgin v. Cram, 8 N. H. 351; Allen v. Aldrich, 9 Foster 73.

¶2The instructions of the court on the nature of the evidence required to prove the marriage, and on the liability of the husband for the wife’s maintenance, appear to have been entirely correct.

¶3By the 24th printed rule of the court, “ where oaths are administered, or depositions are taken abroad, to be used in this State, by a person acting as a justice of the peace, notary public, or commissioner, and the oath is certified upon any paper to be used in evidence in this State, the fact that the person has signed his name in either of the said capacities, and has affixed *422his seal, where one is required, to the deposition or caption, or other paper offered in evidence, will be received as primd facie evidence that he is legally empowered so to act.” The ruling of the court, admitting the deposition taken in New-York, was according to the rule, and correct.

¶4The court have power to determine all matters of fact necessary to decide interlocutory questions raised on trial. The Court of Common Pleas, on the evidence before them, decided, as matter of fact, that the witness was wife of the defendant, and that her deposition was therefore inadmissible. The court was no more bound to hear the testimony of the woman, who, the evidence satisfied them, was the defendant’s wife, than the testimony of the defendant himself. We do not undertake to decide that the court could not have heard the testimony of the defendant’s wife, or the testimony of the defendant himself, on a question of fact like this ; but we think there is no ground to disturb the verdict because the court exercised their discretion the other way and rejected the evidence.

¶5Judgment on the verdict.

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