Wallace v. Wallace

Decided June 24, 1907

Supreme Court of New Jersey · decided 1907-06-24

wife upon the ground ■of adultery. The charge is based upon the fact that she was delivered of a child, which must have been conceived, according to the evidence in this cause, at a time when the husband did not have access to his wife, and as a consequence the child is not his child, but the child of a paramour of the defendant, not disclosed. “The presumption is, and as I understand the law to be, that a child born in wedlock is the child of the married people.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“We think the decree should be affirmed, for the reasons given by the learned vice-chancellor; but in affirming the decree it is not necessary to hold that the testimony of the husband was admissible to prove non-access to his wife. No objection was made to the reception of his testimony, but we desire to leave undecided the questions whether our Evidence act makes the testimony competent as against an objection, and whether public policy permits the objection to the testimony, if valid, to be waived by the adverse party.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Loudon v. Loudon

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1907-06-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently November 2018

14 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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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Swayze, J.

¶2We think the decree should be affirmed, for the reasons given by the learned vice-chancellor, but in affirming the decree it is not necessary to hold that the testimony of the husband was admissible to prove non-access to his wife. No objection was made to the reception of his testimony, but we desire to leave undecided the questions whether our Evidence'act makes the testimony competent as against an objection, and whether ■ public policy permits the objection to the testimony, if valid, to be waived by the adverse party.

¶3For affirmance — Ti-te Chiee-Justice, Garrison, Fort, Hendrickson, Swayze, Reed, Trenchard, Bogert,- Vredenburgh, Green, Gray, Dill — 12. • -

¶4For reversal- — None.