Opinion ID: 2365840
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Miss Dorf's domicile

Text: In Bainum v. Kalen, 272 Md. 490, 497-99, 325 A.2d 392 (1974), Judge Eldridge recently reviewed for this Court our prior holdings on this subject. They may be summarized: the words reside or resident mean domicile unless a contrary intent is shown. A person may have several places of abode or dwelling, but he can have only one domicile at a time. Domicile has been defined as the place with which an individual has a settled connection for legal purposes and the place where a person has his true, fixed, permanent home, habitation and principal establishment, without any present intention of removing therefrom, and to which place he has, whenever he is absent, the intention of returning. The controlling factor in determining a person's domicile is his intent. One's domicile, generally, is that place where he intends it to be. The determination of his intent, however, is not dependent upon what he says at a particular time, since his intent may be more satisfactorily shown by what is done than by what is said. Once a domicile is determined or established a person retains his domicile at such place unless the evidence affirmatively shows an abandonment of that domicile. In deciding whether a person has abandoned a previously established domicile and acquired a new one, courts will examine and weigh the factors relating to each place. This Court has never deemed any single circumstance conclusive. However, it has viewed certain factors as more important than others, the two most important being where a person actually lives and where he votes. Where a person lives and votes at the same place such place probably will be determined to constitute his domicile. Where these factors are not so clear, however, or where there are special circumstances explaining a particular place of abode or place of voting, the Court will look to and weigh a number of other factors in deciding a person's domicile. As Judge Eldridge put it for the Court in Bainum: These include such things as: the paying of taxes and statements on tax returns; the ownership of property; where the person's children attend school; the address at which one receives mail; statements as to residency contained in contracts or other documents; statements on licenses or governmental documents; where furniture and other personal belongings are kept; which jurisdiction's banks are utilized; membership in professional, fraternal, religious or social organizations; where one's regular physicians and dentists are located; where one maintains charge accounts; and any other facts revealing contact with one or the other jurisdiction. Id. at 499. In reviewing the determination by the chancellor here we must be governed by Maryland Rule 886 to the effect that where an action has been tried without a jury we will review the case upon both the law and the evidence, but the judgment of the lower court will not be set aside on the evidence unless clearly erroneous.... This rule is applicable even when a trial judge does not have the opportunity to see and hear the witnesses as, for instance, when testimony is before a court examiner. R.E.C. Management v. Bakst Serv., 265 Md. 238, 254, 289 A.2d 285 (1972), and Sewell v. Sewell, 218 Md. 63, 71, 145 A.2d 422 (1958). Thus, it is applicable to the determination made by the chancellor here from that portion of the evidence stipulated to by the parties as well as to the live testimony before him. We do not have here a single person who has maintained some clothes and other effects at the home of her parents, although spending most of her time at some point distant therefrom by reason of employment or schooling, who is arguing that the home of her parents is her domicile or place of permanent abode. We have a person living in the apartment in question located but a matter of minutes by automobile from the home of her parents. Thus, the location of the apartment was mandated by neither employment nor schooling, either of which might constitute special circumstances for a single person such as Miss Dorf. We have a statement made under penalty of perjury on her 1975 income tax return that her residence on the last day of the taxable period was Baltimore County and that therefore her piggy-back income tax should be paid to that county. Her insurance policy on her personal effects in the apartment is inconsistent with a contention that the apartment was for business purposes only. Her Maryland driver's license showed the Baltimore County address, as does each of the 15 charge accounts or credit cards enumerated in the stipulation. Given that background, we find the judgment of the chancellor not to have been clearly erroneous when he concluded that she had abandoned her domicile at the home of her parents and had established a home of her own in Baltimore County. Thus, it follows that he was correct in holding that she had ceased to be a member of the Democratic State Central Committee for the 42nd Legislative District and that by virtue of that fact no valid nomination was made by that committee to the Governor for the vacancy then existing in the Maryland House of Delegates.