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43 Ind. 429

Coleman v. White

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1873

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1873-11-15

<p>Seduction. — Evidence.—Mitigation of Damages. — In an action for the seduction of the plaintiff’s wife, it is competent for the defendant to prove, under an answer of general denial, in mitigation of damages, that owing to the wicked and depraved disposition of the plaintiff, he and his wife, before the alleged improper intimacy, lived unhappily together, that the plaintiff frequently cursed, abused, and struck her, and about three years before their final separation, drove her from his home, under threats of killing her.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1873-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently May 1904

7 state decisions

301873188018901900decided

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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Pettit, J.

¶1This suit was brought by appellee against appellant for seducing and debauching his, appellee’s, wife, by the appellant.

¶2Answer of general denial, trial by jury, verdict for appellee, plaintiff below, motion for a new trial overruled, excepted to, and judgment on the verdict for the plaintiff below.

¶3The bill of exceptions shows that on the trial the appellant, defendant below, offered to prove by competent witnesses at the proper time the following facts: “ That White and his wife lived together as husband and wife, and that before the alleged improper intimacy between the defendant and plaintiff’s wife, the plaintiff and his wife lived unhappily together; that he frequently cursed and abused her, and often struck her; that at one time, about three years before their final separation, the plaintiff drove her from their home by beating her and by threats that he would kill her, at the time presenting a pistol at her, which caused her to fly from her home and her children; that this trouble grew out of the fact that the wife wanted one of the children to wash before coming to breakfast, and the husband determined it should not; that they afterward lived together again, but unhappily, until March, 1872, when they finally separated; that said trouble between the plaintiff and his wife existed on account of the wicked, depraved, and selfish disposition of the plaintiff, and not on account of any *430alleged improper intimacy between the defendant and plaintiff’s wife.”

¶4This offered evidence was refused and rejected by the court, and the correctness of this ruling is the only question in the case before us. That the offered and rejected evidence was clearly admissible in mitigation of damages, there can be no doubt. Sedgw. Dam. 547; Gilchrist v. Bale, 8 Watts, 355; Palmer v. Crook, 7 Gray, 418; 1 Greenl. Ev. 117, sec. 102; 2 Hilliard Torts, 509; Hilliard Remedies, 398; Addison Torts, 899.

¶5The judgment is reversed, at the costs of the appellee.

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