HEALTH AND MARRIAGE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 221, 12 June 1919, Page 5

HEALTH AND MARRIAGE

A- BREACH OF. PROMISE CASE. ' In a recent action in London to recover <]amagps for, alleged .breach, of promise of marriage the defendant, who is the son of. a medical practitioner, said that lie broke off the engagement 'tocause he found, that the'; plaintiff was .suffering , from tuberculosis.,. . j , "Mr. Justice liish,'in summing.'up, said Ihe case was .unusual and important. A contract to marry was like any other colli tract, and the party, breaking it had to justify that course. There was. justification if one person were shown to be unfit to marry, bu; not if the promise were, made with knowledge of the illness. The jury must consider ■ whether the plaintiff had tuberculosis on Jiino 1, the dato of the promise, or at the <late of (he breach, or at Christm«s, when the marriage was fixed. The evidence of Dr. Stevens, who was n disinterested party, was that he sent the lady to a sanatorium, and that afterwards he' detected active signs'of the disease. Their she got better, but he Could not say that she was cured, and he would not have recommended .her last autiimn to marry. Even then ho would have insisted on a probationary period of three'years; The plaintiff had not called any medical witness as lo her health'. They mi»ht think the' evidence' of the defendant's fatlipr, I)r.. Barnard, was extreme, as he held f.liat the slightest' taint should <leijar marriage,, but it did not follow, 'becaiwo many people were rash enough to. marry" r.-hen this disease lvas attached to. tlieni,<-and'-were -willing to risk infecting one another and having cliildren :-who would be predisposed to it, that a man's re. fusal to marry under such conditions was unreasonable'or wrongful. Tho jury had to take a'broad viewof ; liie: wholo of .the facts' and circumstances of the case. .. ' ■ ■■■''•'.■' The jnrydisagTeed, arid were .'discharged after tho Judge had asked'the nartios whether they wo»ld take a majority ver. diet and they.had declined. • •