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53 Wash. 297

Thomas v. Thomas

Washington Supreme Court

Decided May 27, 1909

Washington Supreme Court · decided 1909-05-27

, entered December 5, 1908, upon findings in favor of the plaintiff, after a trial on the merits before the court without a jury, in an action for divorce.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1909-05-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently June 2001

11 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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Dunbar, J.

¶1This is an appeal from a judgment for divorce, the only contention being that the former husband of the respondent, plaintiff in this action, was not dead at the time of the alleged marriage of appellant and respondent. The testimony is brief and presents a plain conflict. The rule of presumption in cases of this kind is thus expressed in 1 Bishop, Marriage & Divorce (5th ed.), § 457:

“It being for the highest good of the parties, of the children, and of the community, that all intercourse between the sexes in its nature matrimonial should be such in fact, the law, when administered by enlightened judges, seizes upon all presumptions both of law and of fact, presses into its service all things which can help it in each particular case, to sustain marriage and repel the conclusion of unlawful commerce.”

¶2Aided by this presumption, we think the court was justified in holding that the marriage was a legal one, and in rendering the decree which it did enter. Affirmed.

¶3Rudkin, C. J., Mount, Crow, and Parker, JJ., concur.

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