Story Case

Henry Walton misrepresented to Hilda Edwards the status of his financial worth in order to get her consent to marry him. He told her that he had property worth ten thousand dollars and could supply all her material wants without trouble. She married him in reliance on this statement. After the marriage she learned that her husband was worth a very small amount - not over one thousand dollars. Thereupon she tried to have the marriage annulled, on the ground that there was no real consent to the marriage since she was induced by fraud to enter into the marriage. Walton defended on the ground that altho the statements were untrue, this was not sufficient fraud to annul the marriage. Is this correct?

Ruling Court Case. Lorenzo Vs. Lorenzo, Volume 174 New York Reports, Page 467

This was an action brought to have the marriage between the plaintiff and defendant annulled, upon the ground that the former's consent thereto was induced by the fraud of the latter.

It was shown that prior to the marriage the plaintiff had had illicit intercourse with the defendant. Soon thereafter the plaintiff left the City of New York where they both lived at the time. Upon his return sometime thereafter, the defendant stated to the plaintiff that while he was gone she had given birth to a child of which he was the father. It appeared that the defendant had a child in her possession, which she exhibited to the plaintiff, of which he was the father, according to her claim.

In view of this state of things as pictured by the defendant, she demanded that the plaintiff marry her immediately. The latter believing that her representations were true, consented to do so.

After the marriage, the plaintiff discovered that all of these representations were false; he found that she not only had not given birth to a child of which he was the father, but that she had not given birth to any child at all. It was shown that the child which she exhibited as his was one which she had procured for the purpose of inducing the marriage.

Mr. Justice Gray, said in part as to the validity of this marriage: "In this case, the representations of the defendant were as to a fact, except for the truth of which the necessary consent of the plaintiff would not have been obtained to the marriage. It was designed to create a state of mind in the plaintiff, the operation of which would be to yield a consent to marry the defendant, in the belief that he was rectifying a great wrong. The minds of the parties did not meet upon a common basis of operation. The artifice was such as to deceive a reasonably prudent person.

Accordingly, since there was no real consent to this marriage, it was decreed that it should be annulled at the prayer of the plaintiff.

Ruling Law. Story Case Answer

In a previous topic we discussed the mutual consent requisite in a contract to marry; that is, what consent is necessary in order to render a promise to marry binding? Now we come to a situation where the parties have married and the question is, to what extent will the previous lack of consent render a marriage void or voidable?

When the parties have married, the relation is more than a mere contract relation. It becomes a legal status, a domestic relation. The policy of the law is to make it as binding as possible. It hesitates to dissolve or declare it void.

Courts will seldom declare a marriage contract void, unless the consent was in no sense real. Fraud of a very serious nature, perpetrated on the other party to the marriage will render the marriage voidable. Concealment of pregnancy, caused by a third party before marriage, is of such a serious nature that it will render the marriage void. So in the case of Lorenzo vs. Lorenzo, the court was of the opinion that the fraud there was of such a serious nature that the plaintiff never did give a real consent to the marriage relation.

Almost invariably the law will hold that misrepresentation as to financial worth is not sufficient to invalidate the consent. Such misrepresentation is not sufficient to have the Court declare the marriage void. Therefore, in the Story Case, the parties were legally married.