## Facts

- Jessie Thompson sued her husband, Charles Thompson, in the District of Columbia seeking tort damages for alleged assaults and batteries.
- The complaint was a common-law action with seven counts and demanded $70,000 in damages.
- The husband demurred, arguing District of Columbia married-women statutes did not authorize a wife to sue her husband at law for personal torts.

## Issues

1. Whether the District of Columbia Code provisions on married women (including § 1155) authorize a wife to maintain an action at law against her husband for damages for assault and battery.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for the husband.
- The Court held that, under the then-existing District of Columbia statutes, a wife could not maintain an action at law against her husband to recover damages for assault and battery.
- The Court treated the common-law rule barring interspousal tort suits as remaining in force absent clear statutory language to the contrary.

## Legal Principles

- Statutes altering the common law are construed in light of the prior rule and the specific change the legislature intended to make; courts do not infer major changes in domestic-relations law without clear language.
- District of Columbia married-women provisions expanding a पत्नी’s separate legal capacities (especially regarding property and related wrongs) did not, without express authorization, create a general right to sue a husband for personal tort damages.
- A married woman’s ability to pursue remedies concerning separate property interests did not imply a right to bring an action at law against her husband for personal injuries.
- Dissent (Harlan, joined by Holmes): the statutes should be read to remove common-law disabilities broadly enough to allow a wife to seek a civil remedy against her husband for personal injuries.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the District of Columbia’s married-women statutes did not authorize a wife’s tort action at law against her husband for assault and battery, so the common-law bar on interspousal personal-tort suits controlled and the dismissal was affirmed.


Thompson v. Thompson, 218 U.S. 611 (1910)