EVIDENCE-PRIVILEGE-CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE

Authors

James I. Huston, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Husband sued for divorce alleging that wife drank excessively and humiliated him in public by her conduct, and that she continually made false and profane accusations designed to make his life unbearable. As proof of the latter charge, plaintiff was allowed to introduce in evidence a wire recording of conversations between plaintiff and defendant in their bedroom. Plaintiff's son by a previous marriage had, by prearrangement with plaintiff, installed in their bedroom a microphone connected to a wire-recorder in the son's adjoining bedroom, with which recordings were made of four separate conversations between plaintiff and defendant. The recordings substantiated plaintiff's theory, but revealed that plaintiff had goaded his wife into making her remarks and had asked her to speak louder at several points, claiming he could not hear her. Held, decree for husband reversed. The recordings were not admissible because the conversations are privileged as confidential communications by the wife to her husband. Hunter v. Hunter, 169 Pa. Super. 498, 83 A. (2d) 401 (1951).

Recommended Citation

James I. Huston, EVIDENCE-PRIVILEGE-CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE, 50 Mich. L. Rev. 933 (1952).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol50/iss6/11