A JUDGE TO ANOTHER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 115, 17 May 1932, Page 7

A JUDGE TO ANOTHER.

Married Lord Justice Rebukes

Bachelor,

MARITAL RELATIONS

LONDON, May 12.

"If there is to be a discussion of the relations of husbands and wives, it would come better from judges who have more than a theoretical knowledge of husbands and wives." So said Mr. Justice Scrutton, a Lord Justice of Appeal and a married man with three sons and one daughter, reversing a judgment of the famous bachelor judge, Mr. Justice McCardie.

"Air. Justice McCardie," he said, "had referred to judges who possess sociological knowledge, but I think that the less sociological knowledge is brought to bear on legal questions the better. I am a little surprised that an unmarried gentleman should, as Mr. Justice McCardie has done in another case, explain what is the proper underclcfthing that ladies should wear. I think that these things are better disregarded in legal discussions."

The judge added that, although means of enforcing a husband's and a wife's respective rights of consortium had materially altered —the husband being unable to employ physical force—there still remained means- of enforcing those rights, notably by the restitution of conjugal rights.

Mr. Justice McCardie was wrong in thinking that there was 110 evidence on which a jury properly directed could five a verdict for plaintiff. Ihe case ought to have been retried before a second jury.

Lords Justices Green and Slesser con curred.

This was the case in which _ John Place' a Cambridge grocer's assistant, sued Dr. Charles Searle for damages that the doctor had enticed his wife away from him. Mr. Justice McCardie found for defendant, and the result of this appeal enables Place to have a fresh trial.