Rager v. Johnstown Traction Co. ( 1957 )

Opinion by

Ervin, J.,

In this workmen’s compensation case, Ira H. Eager was accidentally killed September 22, 1953 while in the course of his employment with the defendant company and Margaret Eager claimed compensation as his widow. The only question involved is whether there was a valid common law marriage. The referee and board found that there was a valid common law marriage and awarded compensation to the claimant. The lower court dismissed the defendant’s appeal and entered judgment affirming the award of compensation. The defendant and its insurance carrier took this appeal.

The law in this field is clear and well established. As the fact finding body has found in her favor, we must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the claimant and she is to be given the benefit of inferences reasonably deducible therefrom. Fiedler v. National Tube Co., 161 Pa. Superior Ct. 155, 159, 53 A. 2d 821. Common law marriages are valid in Pennsylvania. Buradus v. General Cement Products Co. et al., 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 501, 48 A. 2d 883, affirmed 356 Pa. 349, 52 A. 2d 205. Marriage in Pennsylvania is a civil contract and does not require any particular form of solemnization before officers of church or state. Balanti v. Stineman Coal & Cohe Co., 131 Pa. Superior Ct. 344, 200 A. 236; Wagner v. Wagner, 152 Pa. Superior Ct. 4, 30 A. 2d 659.

Cohabitation and reputation that the parties are married do not constitute a legal marriage — not even a common law marriage — but they are evidence from which a marriage may be found, if the circumstances are sufficiently strong and convincing to satisfy the triers of fact. Caddy v. Firemen’s Relief Assn., 129 Pa. Superior Ct. 493, 196 A. 590; Jamison v. Williams, 164 Pa. Superior Ct. 344, 348, 64 A. 2d 857. To constitute a valid marriage in Pennsylvania there must be a contract per verba de praesenti, uttered with a view to establish the relation of husband and wife. Murdoch’s Estate, 92 Pa. Superior Ct. 275, 285. The presumption of a valid common law marriage which arises as a result of cohabitation and reputation may be rebutted by proof that no common lav/ marriage had in fact taken place. Edwards v. Enterprise Mfg. Co., 283 Pa. 420, 421, 129 A. 449. Where the one who asserts a common law marriage does not rest her case on reputation and cohabitation but attempts to prove the marriage by evidence of what occurred at the time of the alleged contract of marriage, presumption of marriage arising from reputation and cohabitation will give way to positive proof that no contract was made. Fiedler v. National Tube Co., supra, at page 158. Evidence of cohabitation and reputation may be received and considered in corroboration of testimony that a marriage contract was in fact entered into. Com. ex rel. Kolish v. Kolish, 154 Pa. Superior Ct. 591, 593, 36 A. 2d 857.

The difficulty in this case is not with the law but with the facts and the inferences to be drawn therefrom. There was ample evidence of cohabitation and reputation to establish a presumption of a valid common law marriage contract. The parties continuously lived together for approximately 11 years as man and wife and this association was terminated only by the death of the man. Both of the parties were free to enter into a valid contract at the time they started living together, the man being a widower and the woman being single. Store accounts and charge plate were made out in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Ira H. Eager; insurance contracts were made out in their names as man and wife; the decedent always introduced her as his wife; their friends knew them as Mr. and Mrs. Eager and a number of them so testified; they received many letters and Christmas cards addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Ira Eager and Mr. and Mrs. Ira H. Eager; a son of the decedent by a former marriage wrote a letter to them calling them “Mom and Pop”; they made loans from a loan company in the names of both as man and wife; and this status continued for the last 11 years of the decedent’s life. It is argued, however, that the presumption of a valid common law marriage, which clearly arises from cohabitation and reputation, is destroyed by evidence given by the claimant as to the actual contract. This is the crux of the case. If she clearly testified that there was no contract, then her claim would fall. We do not believe that she so testified. The essential part of her direct examination is as follows: “Q. Now how did you happen to go there? A. Well, he seen me and he asked, he said, ‘Come and live with me and make a home.’ I had no place to stay, no place to go, I had to do something, so I did, so we lived up there a year or two years till, I told him until we find a better place, because I wasn’t satisfied with that place. . . . Q. I think my question may not have been entirely clear. What I wanted to know was whether you and Mr. Eager had any understanding or agreement of any kind before you went to live with him? A. Sure. To be husband and wife, that’s the way we made it out, as long as he Uved and as long as I lived. Everything went on Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Rager. . . . Q. And did you continue living together until the time of Mr. Eager’s death? A. Yes. Q. And what was the date of his death? A. September 22nd. Q. 19 — ? A. 1953. . . . Q. From 1943 until the date of Mr. Eager’s death you continued living at the address mentioned a moment ago? A. Yes, I am. Q. And under the same circumstances which you told us just a while ago? A. Yes. . . . Q. By whom were you supported? A. By Mr. Eager, my husband.” (Emphasis added) Her relevant cross-examination is as follows: “Q. You stated when you first went to live with Ira Eager in 1941 or 1942, he said to you, ‘Come and live with me and make a home.’ Is that right? A. Yes. Q. Now is that the only statement that was made at that time about you and he living together? A. Yes. ... Q. Do you remember telling Mr. Eickert that there was no ceremony or oral agreement between you and Ira Eager? A. Yes, it was, I told him that, because my husband always said, ‘Between the eyes of Q-od we are husband and wife.’ . . . Q. In other words, your position is that you had no agreement or conversation between you and your husband other than the original statements that were made back when you went to Ferndale, ‘Come and live with me and make a home,’ other than the fact that he said that in the eyes of God, why you were his wife, is that correct? A. Yes. Q. You never had any agreement that you would be married? A. No. I thought that was enough. He was willing to make a home for me, I was willing to go with him. I think that ought to explain enough. Q. Well, in other words then, he needed a home, and you needed a home, and the two of you started to live together? A. Yes. Q. And the only agreement you ever made was when you started, he said, ‘Come and live with me and make a home/ is that right? A. Yes. Q. You never made any other agreement after that? A. To live together until either one of us died, just depends. Q. Then after that you continued to live Avith Ira Rager until his death on September 22nd, 1953? A. Yes. . . .” (Emphasis added)

The claimant, in some of her testimony, was endeavoring to give the language used by the parties and in some of it she was giving her conclusion as to the meaning of that language. Taken as a whole, we believe that it meant that the parties intended to live with each other as man and wife until death did them part. It certainly does not mean that there was no contract at all or that they were living together in a meretricious relationship. The cohabitation and reputation evidence corroborates an agreement to live together as man and wife and it is not evidence of a meretricious relationship. President Judge Ivan J. McKenrick, in an opinion concurred in by Judge George Griffith, carefully analyzed the testimony and we believe his analysis to be correct. He said, “It is contended on the part of the defendant here that since the claimant relied upon certain words spoken by the decedent that the burden of proving a common laiv marriage was not sustained by the claimant, and that the evidence of cohabitation and reputation was, therefore, of no avail to sustain the alleged common law marriage.

“The case of Caddy v. Johnstown Firemen’s Relief Association of the State of Pennsylvania, 129 Pa. Superior Ct. 493, 495, is cited, as follows: ‘Cohabitation and reputation that the parties are married do not constitute a legal marriage — not even a common law marriage — but they are evidence from which a marriage may be found, if the circumstances are sufficiently strong and convincing to satisfy the triers of fact. If, however, the alleged widow is not satisfied to rest her case on reputation and cohabitation and attempts to prove the marriage by evidence of what occurred at the time of the alleged contract of marriage, and the evidence establishes that no marriage took place, the presumption arising from reputation and cohabitation, no matter how strong, must give way to the positive proof that no contract was made:’ citing certain cases.

“We are quite familiar with the principle laid down by all the cases, including the Caddy case, above quoted. The Caddy case was tried in this court, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and an appeal to the Superior Court resulted in an affirmance. The immediate question, then, is whether the words used by the decedent, according to the version given by the claimant, were sufficiently in praesenti to meet the requirements of the law.

“In the present case the decedent and the claimant were both free to marry. Decedent was a widower; claimant was a single woman. They kept company for some considerable time and there is not a word in the testimony to indicate that their relations were other than honorable during the period, of courtship. Decedent had a home. Claimant was employed. On a date which she cannot recollect exactly, the decedent said to her ‘Come and live with me and make a home’. We are fully warranted, from the testimony, in saying that the claimant is an unlettered person. Her language and grammar indicate that she was not schooled in the art of expression of her thoughts. However, in taking her testimony in its entirety, we must remember that the interpretation of language, the use of words, the implications, the connotations, are all to be determined by the triers of fact. It is exclusively for the triers to determine from the language used what the speaker has in mind and is attempting to convey to his hearers. When the claimant was asked in cross examination as to whether there was any agreement as to the status of the decedent and herself before she moved in with the decedent, her answer was ‘Sure. To be husband and wife, that’s the way we made it out, as long as he lived and as long as I lived. Everything went on Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Eager.’ On cross examination, claimant was asked whether she remembered telling the defendant’s investigator that there was no ceremony or oral agreement between her and the decedent. The answer clearly had reference to the fact that there was no ceremony of marriage, but there was an agreement between the parties. She replied, ‘Yes, it was, I told him that, because my husband always said, “Between the eyes of God we are husband and wife.” ’ It is very evident from the awkward manner of expression that the claimant is not a scholar. What she meant clearly is ‘In the eyes of God we are husband and wife’. She therefore meant that while she had not gone into any place, such as a church or magistrate’s office to have a formal marriage ceremony performed, the understanding between her and the decedent was clearly that in coming with him to make a home she was acting as a wife and not as a mistress.

“The contention of the defendant is that the relationship between these persons was meretricious in its inception. There is not, in our opinion, a word in the testimony which shows any meretricious relationship. The mere fact that she may have desired a home, having no place to go, and the decedent likewise desiring to have someone make a home for him, does not imply that she was merely a housekeeper, and possibly a mistress.

“The claimant, who is in this appeal represented by counsel, lays great emphasis on the statement of the decedent ‘Come and live with me and make a home’. The word ‘home’ to the ordinary individual is understood to mean the abode of a husband and wife, of a family. Never is ‘home’ considered to mean a place for dishonorable motives or immoral conduct. ‘Home’ is defined in Webster’s International Dictionary, 2d Edition, as ‘One’s own dwelling place; the house in which one lives; esp., the house in which one lives with his family; the habitual abode of one’s family. The social unit formed by a family residing together in one dwelling’. Construed in this light, decedent’s proposal to claimant to ‘Come and live with me and make a home’ certainly shows an intent to have claimant live with him, not in a meretricious relationship, but rather as his wife. If he had said ‘I need a housekeeper’, or ‘some one to clean my house and prepare meals’, the contention of the defendants might have some support. The triers in this proceeding had the right, when the word ‘home’ was used, to give that word its proper connotation. We think, therefore, that the Workmen’s Compensation Board was fully warranted in its statement in the substituted ninth finding of fact, which reads: ‘At the time the claimant and the decedent went to live together they expressly agreed with each other to be husband and wife in words of the present and in that way entered into a common-law contract of marriage, which said contract they maintained by cohabitation, reputation and living together until the time of the decedent’s death.’ ”

Judge McKenrick then quoted from the opinion of the Workmen’s Compensation Board as follows: “Caddy vs. Johnstown Firemen’s Belief Association (129 Pa. Super. 493) is cited by both parties. Except for a previous engagement between the Caddys and a ring which was used in the common-law ceremony, the case is much like the one before us and we think it supplies the answer to the present problem. The parallels are that the parties were free to marry; that before they entered into their bond they ‘kept company’ without proven stigma and that they finally agreed to the status they were assuming. As to the major point which has been raised, we feel that everything the present claimant said about the contract of marriage connotes the present. They agreed ‘to be husband and wife’ not by way of engagement or in contemplation of further steps in that direction looking to the future, but rather to settle the nature of their relationship at the moment in keeping with the circumstances in which they found themselves at that time. Certainly the invitation to ‘come and live (together) and make a home’ was proposal enough and the agreement to be husband and wife whether oral or written was express. It presupposes words of the present. Explaining the applicable law, the court in the Caddy case (supra) said: ‘Unlettered persons frequently become confused in the use of tenses and it is difficult to get them to testify to the exact language used in a conversation, in words of the first and second person and using the present tense, rather than their understanding of its import, in words of the third person and using the past tense;...’”

In the present case there was no evidence that anything further was to be done with respect to the relationship.

While there are some contradictions in the claimant’s testimony, its meaning and the inferences to be drawn therefrom were for the referee and the board. They concluded that there was a valid common law marriage. The lower court properly determined that the facts and inferences therefrom, as drawn by the compensation authorities, were binding upon it if they were supported by competent evidence. The lower court found the evidence to be sufficient and with this conclusion the majority of this Court is in accord.

Judgment affirmed.