Summary
In Vanvaks v. Chantly, 107 Fla. 647, 145 Sou. Rep. 838, Chantly sued Banvaks for alienation of his wife's affections and for criminal conversation with her. The judgment for $25,000.00 damages rendered the husband in that case was affirmed without serious debate among the Justices of this Court, mainly because of the element of criminal conversation established on defendant's part as a basis for the recovery there awarded.
Summary of this case from Mallory v. EdgarOpinion
Decision filed January 9, 1933. Petition for rehearing denied February 15, 1933.
A writ of error to the Circuit Court for Dade County; A. V. Long, Judge.
Bart A. Riley, for Plaintiff in Error;
Hendricks Hendricks, for Defendant in Error.
This cause having heretofore been submitted to the Court upon the transcript of the record of the judgment herein, and briefs and argument of counsel for the respective parties, and the record having been seen and inspected, and the Court being now advised of its judgment to be given in the premises, it seems to the Court that there is no error in the said judgment; it is, therefore, considered, ordered and adjudged by the Court that the said judgment of the Circuit Court be, and the same is hereby affirmed.
BUFORD, C.J., AND WHITFIELD AND BROWN, J.J., concur.
A judgment for $25,000.00, in a suit brought by the husband for alienation of his wife's affections, seems grossly excessive, when we have repeatedly cut down judgments here for loss of limb, and even of life itself, that have been much lower in amount. The fact that the case was tried before an able and long experienced trial judge, who refused to disturb the verdict, evidently because the evidence showed defendant's criminal conversation with the unfaithful wife in her husband's own bed; an offense for which many men have been shot; instead of sued, is persuasive, so I concur.