to alienate and estrange her from her husband. That he had told her, at divers times and places, that he loved her deeply, devotedly, madly, and that he could not live without her. That plaintiff had written her love-letters on divers occasions; had given her a fine gold finger-ring, and desired to leave and abandon his own wife and children, and take defendant's wife and go to a new country where they would not be known, and could marry and live together as man and wife. That plaintiff was rich and would maintain her in luxury and ease, and she could live like a lady without labor and toil. Defendant, further answering, states that plaintiff, by his persistent efforts, finally succeeded in alienating and estranging the love and affections of defendant's wife from defendant, and procured, in the manner and by the means aforesaid, her consent to leave and desert her husband and elope with plaintiff." The answer goes on to recite that she had relented her rash promise to elope with plaintiff, had confessed everything to her husband, and begged to remain with him as his wife under the security of pardon and forgiveness. It is further alleged in substance that the defendant, smarting under the wrongs inflicted upon him by the plaintiff, repaired to the plaintiff's residence with his attorney, with a view of settling for these wrongs without suit; that in the interview the plaintiff admitted the facts as charged against him, and agreed to pay defendant, in liquidation of all damages by him sustained, and in final settlement thereof, the sum of $600; that he paid down $50 and gave the note in controversy for the remaining $550, payable four months from date; that he afterwards. paid $205 on account of the note, which payment was indorsed on the same. The answer concludes with a prayer that the injunction be dissolved and judgment be rendered in defendant's favor, in the amount of the note remaining unpaid which, is stated to be $345 with interest. The plaintiff interposed a demurrer to this answer, which was overruled. The case was then tried by the Court without the intervention of a jury. The Court found the issues in favor of defendant, declaring in its decree that the matters and allegations in plaintiff's petition are untrue and not sustained by the evidence. The injunction was dissolved and the sum of $40.05 was assessed as damages on the injunction bond against the plaintiff and his sureties. It was also adjudged that defendant recover of plaintiff the balance due on the note sought to be enjoined. The bill of exceptions does not contain the evidence, but merely recites that evidence was submitted by both parties tending to prove the allegations of their pleadings. Only one question is presented to us in the record, for determination. The question involves the sufficiency of the defence, and is raised on the demurrer and in the motions made after judgment. The plaintiff contends that as the answer fails to show that defendant's wife had been actually debauched or seduced away from him, no wrong had been inflicted upon him, for which an action lies; and that the note taken in settlement of the supposed wrong was void as being without consideration. This position cannot be maintained upon either principle or authority. The injury to defendant consists in the alienation of his wife's affections with malice or improper motives. Debauchery and elopement when they occur are only the immediate and legitimate consequences of the wrong. That the injury in this instance did not culminate in adultery and elopement, is a fact not due to the plaintiff's forbearance, but to the wife's prudent reflection and laudable repentance. The alienation of the wife's affections, for which the law gives redress, may be accomplished notwithstanding her continued residence under her husband's roof. Indeed it has been not unfrequently remarked by authors and jurists, that such continued residence after the alienation has been effected, so far from leaving the husband without a good cause of action, contributes an aggravation to his injury, from which an elopement might well be accepted in the nature of an alleviation. Schouler's Dom. Rel. 57; Cooley on Torts, 224; Hoard v. Peck, 56 Barb. 202; Heermance v. James, 47 Barb. 120. I think it would be difficult to regard it in any other light in the absence of contrition or change of heart. The demurrer admits the salacious and seductive solicitations of the plaintiff, extending over a period of eighteen months. It also admits the fact of actual estrangement and alienation which constitutes the essence of the offence. Everything which follows afterwards can be only in the nature of aggravation, mitigation or reparation of the wrong inflicted upon the sanctity of the defendant's home. . . . 1 [PROBLEMS: The judgment is affirmed. All concur1 The plaintiff and his wife were injured corporally, while riding in the defendant's car, by the defendant's fault. The plaintiff brought suit and recov ered for his own corporal injury. He now brings suit for the loss of services and society of his wife, and his medical expenses, during her illness. Is this claim maintainable? (1891, Skoglund v. Minneapolis St. R. Co., 45 Minn. 330, 47 N. W. 1071.) The plaintiff petitioned for an injunction, alleging that the defendant had already partially alienated the wife's affections, and asking that the defendant be restrained from calling upon or writing or speaking to her, so as to prevent a total alienation. (1899, Ex parte Warfield, 40 Tex. 413, 50 S. W. 933.) The defendant, mother of the plaintiff's husband, so influenced her son as to alienate his affections from the plaintiff, and on July 14, 1901, he left her for the mother's home, saying that he would never come back. He never did. On February 8, 1904, he began suit for divorce. On December 7, 1904, she began action against the defendant for loss of her husband's affections and society. By statute, causes of action in tort are barred from recovery after two years from accrual. Is her action barred? (1910, Farneman v. Farneman, Ind. App. —, 90 N. E. 774.) NOTES: "Right to maintain action for alienation of husband's affections." (H. L. R., V, 414; VIII, 507; XI, 270; XII, 142; XIII, 49, 413; XVII, 282.) "Alienation of affections: plaintiff's husband persuading party." (H. L. R., XVII, 197.) "Wife's right of action for alienation of husband's affections." (M. L. R., II, 236, 237.) Authorities collected in Lonstorf v. Lonstorf, (1903), 118 Wis. 159, 95 N. W. Topic 4. Wife's Interest in the Marital Relation 86. WOLF v. FRANK COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND. 1900 92 Md. 138, 48 Atl. 132 APPEAL from Circuit Court, Washington County; Edward Stake, Judge. Action by Amelia Frank against Mary J. Wolf. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed. Argued before MCSHERRY, C. J., and FOWLER, BRISCOE, PAGE, BOYD, PEARCE, SCHMUCKER, and JONES, JJ. L. D. Syester, for appellant. M. L. Keedy and D. W. Doub, for appellee. BOYD, J. This suit was brought by the appellee against the appellant on March 31, 1900, by her next friend, Grafton C. Harper, but it was subsequently amended by striking out the next friend. The declaration alleges that the defendant wrongfully enticed and procured the husband of the plaintiff unlawfully, and without the consent and against the will of the plaintiff, to depart and remain absent from her home and society, whereby she lost the society, support, and protection of her husband. There are two counts which are similar, excepting the first alleges that the act complained of was done on the 25th day of December, 1899, while the second fixes no time. A demurrer was filed on the ground that the declaration stated no cause of action under the law of this State, which was overruled. During the progress of the trial, which resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff, two exceptions were taken to rulings of the Court in excluding certain testimony offered by the defendant. The defendant appealed from the judgment, and the questions presented for our consideration are the rulings of the Court on the demurrer and the offers of testimony embodied in the two bills of exception. 1. This is the first time a suit of this character has been before this Court. There has been but little, if any, difference of opinion as to the 961; Humphrey v. Pope, (1898), 122 Cal. 253, 54 Pac. 847; Betser v. Betser, (1900), 186 Ill. 537, 58 N. E. 249; King v. Hanson (1904), 13 N. D. 85, 99 N. W. 1085; Dodge v. Rush (1906), 28 D. C. App. 149. ESSAYS: Irving Browne, "The Husband-Seducer" (American Law Rev., 1892, XXVI, 36). CHAPTERS ON THE JURAL NATURE AND ETHICAL BASIS OF THIS RIGHT: John Austin, "Jurisprudence, or the Philosophy of Positive Law," 4th ed., vol. II, pp. 970, 979. Thomas E. Holland, "Elements of Jurisprudence," 9th ed., c. XI, par. II, p. 164. Theodore D. Woolsey, "Political Science," §§ 44-49. right of a husband to sue for what is termed "the loss of consortium," - that is, the loss of his wife's society, affection, and assistance, — and when any one, by the alienation of her affections, deprives him of his conjugal rights, he is liable to respond in damages. Indeed, such right has been sustained at least as far back as the case of Winsmore v. Greenbank, Willes, 577. The authorities are not so harmonious as to the right of the wife to sue for injuries sustained by her by being unlawfully deprived of the society, affection, etc., of the husband. But whatever differences now remain relative to it are, for the most part, as to the source from which she acquired the right, rather than whether such right exists at all. In countries and States where the common law has prevailed, members of the bench and bar have been accustomed in the past to consider the rights and liabilities of married women as they existed under its rules, and, although statutes have been passed from time to time enlarging their rights and increasing their liabilities, they have in many jurisdictions, including our own, been for the most part kept strictly within the lines fixed by legislative enactment. The tendency of modern legislation has been to greatly increase their powers, and in many States of this country such rights are conferred and such liabilities imposed on them as will probably furnish Courts difficult problems to solve in determining who is the head of the house. But, whatever their legal rights have been in the past, they have, as a rule, surpassed their husbands in their capacity to appreciate and enjoy domestic happiness. When, then, the marital rights of a woman are unlawfully invaded, so as to cause this “loss of consortium," why should she not be entitled to have the wrong done her redressed by the law, as her husband would be under such circumstances? If entitled to it, refusal to grant such redress can only be excused, if at all, on the ground that, by reason of her peculiar status as a married woman, no remedy had been or could be provided her; and hence we must inquire into and determine that question. We have seen it stated that there are only two States in this country, in which the question has arisen, where the right of a married woman to maintain such an action is still denied. Whether that be correct or not we cannot say, but in our investigation of the authorities we have only found two, Wisconsin and Maine, although most of the decisions are based on statutes. In Duffies v. Duffies, 76 Wis. 374, 45 N. W. 522, 8 L. R. A. 420, it was decided that neither at common law nor under the statutes of that State could a wife maintain an action against one enticing away her husband for the loss of his society and support; and in Doe v. Roe, 82 Me. 503, 20 Atl. 83, 8 L. R. A. 833, affirmed in Morgan v. Martin, 92 Me. 190, 42 Atl. 354, the right is denied, apparently on other grounds. The Wisconsin case is not alone as to the right to sue at common law, and the statute in force when that case arose was held not to sustain the right of action. The case of Logan v. Logan, 77 Ind. 558, cited in Duffies v. Duffies, is practically, although not in terms, overruled by Haynes v. Nowlin, 129 Ind. 581, 29 N. E. 389, 14 L. R. A. 787, so far as it affects this question, and the case of Van Arnam v. Ayers, 67 Barb. 544, is overruled by Bennett v. Bennett, 116 N. Y. 584, 23 N. E. 17, 6 L. R. A. 553. There are other cases which have denied the right of recovery, under the peculiar facts that were alleged or proven. For example, in Houghton v. Rice, 174 Mass. 366, 54 N. E. 843, 47 L. R. A. 310, and Neville v. Gile, 174 Mass. 305, 54 N. E. 841, it was held that the declarations were not sufficient, as in that State a husband could not recover for the mere alienation of the wife's affections, but there must be the loss of the wife's consortium, and a wife was in no better position than the husband. Then there are cases in which a distinction is made between suits against strangers and those against the parents of the husband or wife. If the latter act in good faith, and without malice, they are generally relieved because they are under obligation, by the law of nature, to protect their children and relieve them when in distress. But there are many authorities which sustain this character of suit. That of Foot v. Card, 58 Conn. 1, 18 Atl. 1027, 6 L. R. A. 829, is a leading one, and has taken a more advanced position than most of the others, although it has been frequently referred to by other Courts. After referring to the right of the husband to sue, Justice Pardee, in delivering the opinion of the Court, said: "Whatever inequalities of right as to property may result from the marriage contract, husband and wife are equal in rights in one respect, namely, each owes to the other the fullest possible measure of conjugal affection and society; the husband to the wife all that the wife owes to him. Upon principle, this right in the wife is equally valuable to her, as property, as is that of the husband to him." He also said: "The law will permit no one to obtain redress for wrong, except by its instrumentality, and it will furnish a mode of obtaining adequate redress for every wrong. This rule, lying at the foundation of all law, is more potent than, and it takes precedence of, the reason that the wife is in this regard without the pale of the law because of her inferiority." And again: "Wherever there is a valuable right, and an injury to it, with consequent damage, the obligation is upon the law to devise and enforce such form and mode of redress as will make the most complete reparation." After speaking of the reason of the general rule that a husband shall join in a suit for damages resulting from an injury to the person, property, reputation, or feelings to the wife, he, with great force, shows why that should not be done in a case where the husband, by reason of his own conduct, has not suffered the injury, and cannot ask for redress himself; and added: "To ask in his name would be to plant the seeds of death in the case at the outset, and the law does not compel those who have suffered wrong so to ask for |