RECORD DAMAGES IN DIVORCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 230, 26 September 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)

RECORD DAMAGES IN DIVORCE.

TOTD HUSBAND SUCCEEDS.

LONDON, August 15.

Sir Francis Jeune bad a somewhat difficult point to decide in connection with tne case which was tried tost week, and Is known as the "Greek Divorce Case," and having thought over matters for some days delivered last Monday a decision) with which few will disagree. On July 29th a Jury awarded Mr Constantlnldl £25,000 damages against Dr. William Henry Lance, who had taken away hla wife, who was a daughter of the late Air Stephen Ealli, the well known and greatly respected merchant-millionaire. This was a record sum, bat the jury knew that the lady had £50,000 in settlements, and under her father's will would inherit a very considerable fortune. Their generosity to the husband was no doubt the outcome of a cold calculation of his money loss, bat they also desired, one believes, to mark their sense of the gross breach of trust committed by Dr. Lance In seducing from her husband the daughter of a patient. It was urged on behalf of the guilty couple that Mr Constantlnidi had not come Into Court with clean hands, and It was proved that at a date anterior to the proved adultery of Mrs Constautinldi, the husband had succumbed to the fascinations of a woman to whom Sir Francis referred as a "professional seductress." Such conduct is usually regarded as a bar to relief, but Sir Francis Jeune concluded that the circumstances under which the petitioner fell from matrimonial grace were such as not to disentitle him to a decree nisi with costs. His reasons for finding in the husband's favour were that when the wife left the husband In 1897 she did so because she had transferred her affections to the co-respondent, that the husband's misconduct did not conduce to that of the wife, Inasmuch as, without inferring any act of adultery on her part before the marriage with co-respondent, there could be no doubt that when she went to Dakota in February, 1901, she was contemplating an American divorce from her husband, and consequently a marriage to and adultery with the co-respondent, and that the wife's conduct In leaving her husband might have caused or conduced to the adultery of the husband. He thought the verdict of the jury went a long way to decide that point. They could not have given the decision they did unless satisfied that, when the respondent left the petitioner In 1897, she transferred her affection to Dr. Lance, that she had yielded to him, and that when she deserted petitioner In 1897 she was unfalthfnl to her husband in heart and intention. Mrs Constantlnidi, said the Judge, had "shattered her husband's Ideals of the purity of womanhood, and of his wife, set him a glaring example, and deprived him of trhat was, to most men, the strongest safeguard of their virtue, and respect for the mutual obligations of married life." Fie therefore gave the husband a decree nisi, with costs against both Dr. Lance and his (a la Dakota) "wife," and amended the petition with regard to the claim for damages, the husband having only claimed £10,000. The opposing side thereupon hinted at an appeal to the higher courts, and stay of execution was granted on the condition that security for £10,000 should be given within a fortnight.