Hughes v. Doe

Belcher, C. Elizabeth L. Moxley commenced this action to have two deeds of lands in the city of San Francisco, made by John S. Moxley to the defendant, vacated and set aside. The court below found the facts, and adjudged that each of the said deeds “ be and the same is hereby canceled, annulled and for naught held, to the extent of an undivided one-half interest in the said real estate in said deed described.” After the entry of the judgment the plaintiff, Elizabeth L. Moxley, died» and thereupon the present plaintiff, as administrator of her estate, was substituted in her place.

From the judgment entered and from an order denying her motion for a new trial the defendant appeals.

The only points made for a reversal are that the findings were not justified by the evidence, and that the decision was against law.

The evidence introduced covers about two hundred and fifty pages of the printed transcript, and it is very elaborately discussed by counsel in their briefs. No useful purpose would, however, be subserved by setting it out at length, and we shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a statement of a few of the more important matters disclosed by it.

It appears that John S. Moxley and ElizabethL. Moxley were married in the city of Baltimore on the fifteenth day of May, 1849, and that they continued to be husband and wife so long as they both lived. Three weeks after the marriage Moxley started for California, leaving his wife in Baltimore with her mother and sister, where she continued to reside until she died. Moxley arrived in California in due time, a-nd thereafter made his home in San Francisco most of the time until he died on the tenth day of September, 1892. In 1868 he was in Virginia City, in the state of Nevada, and became acquainted with the defendant, who was engaged in carrying on a [201]millinery business there. In the month of August in that year she became sick and confined to her bed, and while so confined he and she entered into a contract of marriage. Shortly thereafter she sold out her millinery business and was removed to San Francisco, where she recovered from her illness, and where, in November following, he and she assumed marital relations with each other.

In the winter of 1869 defendant, with some goods, went to Salem, Oregon, and opened a milinery store there. Thereafter she carried on the millinery business in Salem until the spring of 1878, when she closed it out and went to Portland, Oregon, where she engaged in a like business and carried it on for about a year and a half. She then sold out her interest in the business for $8,000, and returned to San Francisco, where Moxley and she thereafter lived together as husband and wife.