FULL TEXT: When Gregorio di Lorenzo of the Seventh Regiment Band discovered that Johanna Smith had imposed upon him with a borrowed baby in order to induce him to make her Mrs. di Loreno, he didn’t wait to have the matter settled after his death. Instead he sued to have his marriage to Johanna annulled on the ground that she had deceived him with a spurious baby.
The
case was fought all through the courts Byron Traver conflicted his suit and
Justice Calmer granted decree. But Edward appealed for Mrs. di Lorenzo to the
Appellate Division and the learned Justices reversed the decree.
~◊~
She Demanded n Wedding ~◊~
The
Big Trombone and Miss Smith first met in 1830. In 1891 they et up housekeeping
in April 1901 the big band started on a long tour. When it returned in October,
Johanna dandled a new baby before Gregoria and declared that they must be
married right away He hesitated, she demanded.
“I
was very much afraid of her,” he testified at the trial,” and so in November I
married her.”
Nobody
dreamed of trouble until she sued for a separation then for a divorce. His
answer was this suit for an annulment.
Mrs.
di Lorenzo admitted the deception but claimed that it was not such a deception
as entitled Col. Appleton’s star tan-ta-ra man to an annulment and besides that
they had been married by an Italian priest in 1900, shortly after they first
met
The
jury decided that the couple had not been married by a minister in 1890; that
she had palmed off another woman’s baby only to induce him to marry her; that
he married her because of this deception, and Mrs. dl Lorenzo never had a child
of her own.
Justice
Gaynor decided that this was legal ground for an annulment of the marriage The
Appellate Division said it was not – thus the fraud perpetrated by Johanna upon
Gregorio was not sufficient to warrant the Court in annulling their marriage.
Mr.
Traver took the case to the Court of Appeals and today received transcript of
its decision holding that Justice Gaynor was right and the Appellate Division
wrong, and the trombone player’s marriage was annulled.
Judge
Gray wrote the opinion of the Court of Appeals Chief Judge Parker and Judges
Bartlett Martin Cullen and Werner concurring in a unanimous decision.
Judge
Gray says that being established that di Lorenzo’s consent to marry Miss Smith
having been obtained by fraudulent representations that a borrowed baby was her
own is sufficient to warrant annulment of the contract of marriage between
them.
The
mother of the baby may now have it back if she wants it.
[“Bogus
Baby Annuls Wedding - Court of Appeals Annuls Marriage of Gregoria di Lorenzo
and Johanna Smith Because She Deceived Him - She Borrowed The Child - On its
Account the Man Was Induced to Consent to the Ceremony Which Has Now Been
Declaimed Illegal by Highest Court,” The World (New York, N.Y.), May 7, 1903,
p. 3]
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