Court Opinion

ID: 9694685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:51:08.352782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:04.640488
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
In Hellman v. Hellman, 246 Pa.Super. 536, 371 A.2d 964 (1977), the majority held that a lower court abuses its discretion when in a support action it refuses to consider evidence that the supporting spouse is guilty of marital misconduct. I dissented, 246 Pa.Super. at 547, 371 A.2d at 969, but, since the Supreme Court refused allocatur, I accept the majority’s decision. One aspect of that decision, however, should be noted, for it is critical to deciding the present case.
In Heilman the majority claimed that it was not advocating that the lower court should “ ‘balance against each other [the parties’] mutual misdeeds.’ ” 246 Pa.Super. at 544 n.2, 371 A.2d at 968 n.2. How the lower court should consider a supporting spouse’s misconduct if not by balancing, or comparing, it with the dependent spouse’s misconduct was not explained by the majority. Indeed, the majority’s reliance on the dissenting opinion in Hawkins v. Hawkins, 193 N.Y. 409, 422, 86 N.E. 468, 473 (1908), showed, in spite of its protestations, that it was itself engaged in a balancing of the equities.* It is therefore not surprising that in Commonwealth ex rel. D’Andrea v. D'Andrea, 262 Pa.Super. 302, 396 A.2d 765 (1978), this court understood Heilman as allowing a court to balance the equities.
*202In the present case the majority has reached its decision by balancing the equities. It has set off appellant’s adulterous relationship with Mrs. Johnson, his abandonment of the marital home, and his refusal of appellee’s attempts at reconciliation, against appellee’s two adulterous incidents. Its decision therefore represents a second time that Heilman has been understood as holding that in support actions a court should consider and compare the misconduct of the parties. If the supporting spouse’s misconduct is substantially greater than the dependent spouse’s, then the court may, in its discretion, grant or continue a support order so that equity may be achieved. Because I agree that Heilman should be so understood, and because appellant’s misconduct greatly exceeded appellee’s, I concur in the majority’s conclusion that the lower court did not abuse its discretion in granting appellee support.

 The majority quoted with approval the following language from Chief Justice CULLEN’S dissent in Hawkins:
[A] single act of adultery [on the part of the wife], possibly committed at a time long past, and sincerely repented of, should not enable the husband to cast her off without support, though he may be living a life of continuous and [open] profligacy. 246 Pa.Super. at 543, 371 A.2d at 968.