Brown v. Brown

Decided December 31, 1853

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1853-12-31

<p>An attorney at law having filed a petition for a divorce which was unnecessarily gross and indelicate, and having deported himself improperly in reading it, the Court taxed him with the costs of the cause. Held, that the Court acted within its authority.</p> <p>A Court has the power to protect itself against gross violations of decency and decorum, and an appellate Court can only interfere where the power is shown to have been abused.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“gross violations of decency and decorum.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including In Re the Contempt Hearing of Nasser

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1853-12-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently July 2011

1 district · 17 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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Roache, J.

¶1Petition for a divorce. On the hearing of the petition, it was dismissed.

¶2The Court taxed the costs of the cause against the attorney of the plaintiff, because of the unnecessary grossness and indelicacy of the petition, and of his improper deportment in reading it.

¶3To set aside this taxation, the cause is brought here.

¶4To protect itself against gross violations of decency and decorum, is a necessary incidental power of a Court. They have the right to punish in this way such misconduct as is alleged in this case, on the part of an attorney. It is a power to be exercised at the sound discretion of the judge, and this Court can interfere only where it is shown to have abused its discretion.

H. F. Kiger, for the plaintiffs.G. Baker, for the defendant.

¶5This is not shown in the present case. See Loveland v. Jones, ante, p. 184.

Per Curiam.

¶6The judgment is affirmed with costs.