Case ID: nj-eq_93/html/0216-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pee Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Robert Jackson, petitioner-respondent, v. Cordelia Jackson, defendant-appellant.
    [Decided September 23d, 1921.]
    On appeal from a decree of the court of chancery advised by Advisoiyv Master Church, who filed the following opinion:
    “In this case it appears that petitioner1 and defendant were married in 1890; that three children were born of the marriage —Robert, twenty-nine; Alexander, twenty-six; Gladys, twenty-three. During the course of their married life Mrs. Jackson left her husband’s home seven times. She seems to have had no desire to live with her husband as a. wife and gave no reason for leaving except that she preferred to be independent. She refused to stay at home despite the entreaties of petitioner and her children. She stated that she would have nothing further to do with the petitioner. The case seems clearly one of desertion on the part of the defendant. The only question is, whether her final return to the house was a bona fide offer to live with her husband as ai wife should. It appears by the testimony that she offered to go home, but that she would like to go into business and would get some one to do the housework. She came home at night and her daughter informed her that her husband did not feel that 'that was tire proper way for her toi return — that she ‘should return and live as a wife of not come at all. Alexander Jackson, her son, says: ‘She told me she didn’t want to live home. She was living home because her lawyer told her to. This morning she said she had her .clothes in New York and had a room in New York. The only reason I am staying here is on advice from my lawyer.’ He further says: ‘She came in with a traveling bag and stayed all night * * * she was gone the next morning before I was out of bed.’
    “In my opinion this return to her home, considering the circumstances surrounding it, was not a genuine effort, nor did it evince a desire, on her part to live with her husband as a wife should, and that he was then justified, after seven previous desertions, in insisting- that she should either come and live with him as a wife or not come at all. I, therefore, think the allegations of the petitioner have been sustained, and I would respectfully advise a. decree in favor of the petitioner.”
    
      Messrs. Howe & Davis, for the appellant.
    
      Messrs. E. A. & W. A. Schilling, for the respondent.
   Pee Curiam.

The decree appealed from will "be affirmed, for the reasons stated in the opinion filed in the court below by Advisory Master Church.

For affirmance — Ti-ie Ci-iiee-Justice, Trenci-iard, Minturn, Black, ILírrenheimer, Williams, Gardner, Aokerson, Van Buskirk — 9.

For reversal — Swayze, Parker, Bergen — 3.