Opinion ID: 2319856
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Separate Maintenance for Wife

Text: We have held that a wife makes out a prima facie case for support under our Code when she proves that her husband fails or refuses to maintain her and that he is able to do so. Miller v. Miller, D.C.Mun. App., 180 A.2d 888, 889; Johnson v. Johnson, D.C.Mun.App., 179 A.2d 720. Of course, proof of these two facts does not mean that the husband is helpless to defend. On the contrary, he may reduce or even defeat her claim for maintenance by evidence that she left him without cause or reason or that the separation was brought about by her misconduct. We therefore recommended in the Miller case that prerequisite to an award for maintenance there should be a specific finding that the wife was justified in living separate and apart from her husband. In the instant case the wife premised her complaint on the fact that during a three-week period prior to instituting suit her husband had failed to support her, but the evidence revealed she left the marital abode suddenly and without notice to him, that she did not inform him of her new address, and that he did not ascertain it until service of her complaint for separate maintenance, support and custody. Neither in her pleadings nor in her testimony did appellant allege she was justified in living apart from her husband. We need not decide, however, whether appellant's failure to justify her departure was fatal to her case as we agree with the trial judge that appellant had not established one of the essential elements on which she must predicate her right to separate maintenance, i. e., that her husband had failed or refused to support her. We would not adopt a rule of law that would permit a wife to charge her husband with failure to support when, by her own deliberate act in leaving the marital abode and in secreting herself, she made it impossible for him to do so. Especially are we not moved to sanction her claim in this case where it is admitted that prior to her departure appellee had supported his family commensurate with his earning ability and had remained willing to continue this support should appellant return with the children to the marital abode still maintained by him for the family. We therefore affirm the trial court in its denial of separate maintenance to appellant.