Case ID: mass_252/html/0132-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wait, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hattie M. Meader vs. Joseph E. Meader.
    Suffolk.
    December 10, 1924.
    April 17, 1925.
    Present: Rugg, C.J., Braley, Pierce, Carroll, & Wait, JJ.
    
      Marriage and Divorce. Probate Court, Appeal.
    If the record, on appeal from a decree nisi of divorce entered in a probate court on the ground of cruel and abusive treatment by a husband of his wife, shows that there was evidence of the application of physical force to the body of the libellant by the libellee with the purpose of inflicting suffering and not for the sake of self-protection of the libellee, the decree will be affirmed.
    Libel, filed in the Probate Court for the county of Suffolk on March 14, 1924, for a divorce on the ground of cruel and abusive treatment.
    In the Probate Court, the libel was heard by Prest, J., a stenographer having been appointed under G. L. c. 215, § 18, to take the testimony. By order of the judge, a decree nisi was entered. The libellee appealed.
    The case was submitted on briefs.
    
      C. R. Morse, for the libellee.
    
      L. M. Paul, for the libellant.
   Wait, J.

The decree of the Probate Court must be affirmed. There was evidence of the application of physical force to the body of the libellant by the libellee with the purpose of inflicting suffering and not for the sake of self-protection of the libellee. Such conduct is cruel and abusive within the literal and most narrow interpretation of the words. Although the testimony was directly contradictory, and corroboration was lacking, we cannot say that the judge who heard and saw the witnesses was clearly wrong in the decision he made.

No error of law appears.

Decree affirmed.