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39 N.J.L. 133

Noice v. Brown

Supreme Court of New Jersey

Decided November 15, 1876

Supreme Court of New Jersey · decided 1876-11-15

<p>A promise of a married man to marry when a divorce should be decreed benveen himself and his wife, in a suit then pending, is contrary to public policy, and void.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently December 1970

1 district · 6 state decisions

2018761880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

The Chancellor.

¶2The writ of error brings up for review the judgment of the Supreme Court on demurrer to a declaration in an action on the case. The suit is for damages for breach of promise of marriage. The plaintiff is a single woman, and the defendant, at the time of making the alleged promise, was a married man. The declaration avers that the defendant then alleged that he was married and had been living in a state of separation from his wife, who was prosecuting a suit for divorce from the bond of marriage against him, and that he promised the plaintiff that he would marry her as soon as he was divorced from his wife. The Supreme Court held that that promise was contrary to public policy, and therefore void. It is obvious that the cases cited on the argument in support of the declaration, in which the action was upon a promise to marry, made by a man who, though married at the time, was not known to the promisee to be so, differ radically from that under consideration. Here was no deceit, but the plaintiff was fully apprised of the fact that the defendant was married, and the fulfilment of his promise was expressly dependent upon the result of a pending suit for *134divorce, brought by his wife against him. Such a promise, made under such circumstances, is, for the reasons given in the opinion of the Supreme Court, clearly against public policy, and no action can, therefore, be maintained upon it.

¶3The judgment of the Supreme Court will be affirmed.

¶4For affirmance—The Chancellor, Dixon, Knapp, Reed, Scudder, Dodd, Green, Lilly, Wales. 9.

¶5For reversal—None.

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