Of Men, Women & Taxes

The Solomonic wisdom of U.S. judges may sometimes be open to question. But even critics agree that the bench is trying. Some recent decisions:

>The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a wife cannot recover damages for the loss of her husband's sexual potency, even though the state's law permits a husband to recover for the "loss of his wife's consortium."Mrs. Howard E. Krohn of Nashville had filed a $250,000 damage suit against the makers of the drug triparanol on the ground that it had rendered her husband impotent. The court ruled that in Tennessee an irate wife is entitled to her day in court only if she has suffered a personal attack, such as slanderous gossip, or an attack upon her marriage, as in alienation of affection. The difference between the rights of a husband and the rights of a wife, explained the judges, "is a matter of legal classification, not discrimination."

>In Wheeling, W. Va., U.S. District Court Judge Robert Maxwell refused to grant a new trial to an Ohioan convicted of interstate transportation of a stolen car. According to Defendant Arthur Kennell, the trial judge should have excluded the testimony of an FBI agent who had opened the car door and copied the serial number. That evidence, argued Kennell, violated his 4th Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Judge Maxwell ruled otherwise--on the reasonable ground that Kennell did not own the car that was searched.

>In New York City, Justice Maurice Wahl refused to permit one Robert Paul Jama to add "von" to his last name. In his ruling, Judge Wahl noted that "von" occurred as a prefix in German and Austrian names, "especially of the nobility," and cited Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the grant of any title of nobility. "I'm a veteran of both World Wars," declared Judge Wahl, "and when this fellow had the nerve to say he wanted a German genealogy because all his friends and acquaintances were German, that was too much for me."

>In Glens Falls, N.Y., Mrs. John C. Kenny embezzled more than $40,000 between 1959 and 1961. She was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, and because she filed joint tax returns with her husband, the Internal Revenue Service assessed the couple for extra taxes on the amounts which had been stolen but unreported. John Kenny protested that he had not participated in the thefts and did not owe the Government a penny. Not so, ruled the tax court, which held him jointly liable because he had signed the tax returns with his wife during the years of her thievery.

*"The legal right of one spouse to the company, affection and service of the other."

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