Hubbard v. Moore

Taliaferro, J. The plaintiff sues for $2167 15, with interest, being an alleged balance due him of the price of a lot of furniture sold by him to the defendant. The answer is a general denial. The purchase of the furniture is admitted, but the defendant avers that she purchased it to be used in a house of prostitution kept by her, and that the same was to be paid for from time to time as she might be able to do by success in business, but failing in -which she is unable to discharge the debt. She alleges that the contract entered into by her and the plaintiff in regard to the furniture is one reprobated by law and contrary to good morals. There was judgment in the court below dismissing the plaintiff’s action as of non-suit, and he has appealed. The evidence, we think, sufficiently establishes that the plaintiff, when he sold the furniture to the defendant, was aware of her character and business, but it fails to show that in supplying her with furniture there was any intent on his part to aid or sanction her course of vice and abandonment. He lived in Cincinnati. The furniture, it seems, was sold at different times, much the larger lot of it by the plaintiff’s agent iu New Orleans. A portion of it was sold by the plaintiff himself when on a visit to this city. The defendant was allowed a credit to make payments, and she did pay amounts at different times, making an aggregate of $380. The plaintiff had furniture to sell, and his object was to find buyers; the money of the cyprian was as useful to him as that of any other person. That he entered into a contract with the defendant to benefit himself at the expense of morals we are by no means satisfied. The allegations of the defendant’s answer, aiming to create the impression that he promoted the interests of the defendant by supplying her with furniture on terms of credit to facilitate her success in a career of vice and infamy on her part, in order thereby that he might be benefited himself, are not made good by proof. We can not attribute such a motive to him. Clearly a distinction ought to be drawn between acts done manifestly in derogation of public morals and purposely to promote vice and immorality, and acts not having such manifest purpose [592] or tendency, but which might remotely and indirectly be auxiliary to that object. In acts of the latter class there would be no absolute violation of public morals. A turpis causa would not arise in such a case to vitiate a contract in which the offense against morals would be merely conjectural. To the vicious and depraved, as well as to the good and the virtuous, belong the right to acquire the needs and comforts of a common humanity. A different doctrine would adopt the visionary notion that “ there is to be no more cakes and ale.” The fair dealer who by lawful contract furnishes the dissolute with the necessities and conveniences of life should not be debarred the right of enforcing payment for his goods by the effrontry of his vendee asserting in a court of justice that the things furnished were obtained for the express purpose of putting them to disreputable uses. The seller who furnishes an article adapted to a legitimate and proper purpose is not. responsible in a court of morals, and much less in a court of law, for a subsequent perversion of its use by the buyer. In the case at bar it is shown that the furniture was sold at cash prices, with time given for; payment. The seller, there is no doubt, knew that it was to be used in a house of ill fame, but how bis knowledge of that fact involves him in the guilt of the inmates of that house, as an aider and abetter of lewdness and depravity, we think is not apparent. Although'it is not shown that when he delivered the furniture he told the defendant to go her way and sin no more, it is not thence to be inferred that he encouraged lier in continuing in her immoral course of life. That he contributed to enable her to continue it by selling her the furniture is too vague, hypothetical and remote to form an impediment to his recovery on the contract. It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment of the District Court be annulled, avoided and reversed. It is further ordered that tiie plaintiff recover from the defendant two thousand one hundred and sixty-seven dollars and fifteen cents, with legal interest from judicial demand. It is further ordered that the.plaintiff’s priority of lien and privilege upon the property attached be recognized, and. that the same be sold according to law and its proceeds applied to the payment of this judgment — the defendant and appellee paying costs in both courts.