Court Opinion

ID: 9757029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:15:15.415717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:58:19.483642
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the majority’s result but I cannot join in its opinion for the following reasons.
-1-
I disagree with the majority’s statement that “a finding [that one spouse is innocent and injured] is implicit in the entry of the divorce decree on the basis of indignities.” At 297. This is so only if the master and the lower court knew that to grant a plaintiff a divorce it must be shown that the plaintiff was an innocent and injured spouse. While I am confident that the vast majority of masters and courts do know this, this confidence makes me mistrust this case more rather than less. The master made no mention of the issue; nor did the lower court, even though appellant’s Exceptions 14 and 15 were respectively: “The learned Master erred in not finding that the plaintiff was not an innocent and *301injured spouse.” “The learned Master erred in not finding that the plaintiff had subjected the defendant to gross, unwarranted indignities to her person.” (I grant that these exceptions are rather garbled. Nevertheless, they do make plain that appellant considered the plaintiff’s [appellee’s] status as an innocent and injured spouse an issue on which appellant wanted the lower court’s ruling.)
As a general rule, I think we should do better to insist that masters and lower courts state explicitly that a plaintiff is an innocent and injured spouse. Such insistence would help to prevent the situation we have here: no findings of fact on a disputed issue. Without findings, we cannot properly perform appellate review. It is true that in divorce cases our duty is to “ ‘review the testimony and adjudge whether it sustains the complaint of the libellant.’ . ' . . [Breene v. Breene, 76 Pa.Super. 568, 570 (1921).] Such decision in each divorce case should be founded on the court’s personal examination of the testimony . . . .” Nacrelli v. Nacrelli, 288 Pa. 1, 6, 136 A. 228, 229 (1927). However, where the case turns on credibility, we are instructed by the case law that the master’s findings are “entitled to the fullest consideration.” See E. g., Smith v. Smith, 157 Pa.Super. 582, 583-85, 43 A.2d 371, 372 (1945).1 Here, on the disputed issue of appellee’s status as an innocent and injured spouse, we have no findings of fact. Appellant testified at length about appellee’s mistreatment of her. Appellee contradicted her testimony. Did the master believe appellant’s testimony? A majority of this Court might say that it does not matter whether he did or did not (and therefore that it does not matter that he made no findings on the point), since our “review extends to questions of credibility.” Coxe v. Coxe, supra note 1, 246 Pa.Super. at 236, 369 A.2d at 1297. As this case demonstrates, however, this approach reduces the master’s function to that of referee and reporter and ignores his usefulness as an *302assessor of the parties’ truthfulness. It has sometimes been said that the master’s report is “advisory only.” Vautier v. Vautier, 138 Pa.Super. 366, 367, 11 A.2d 207, 208 (1939). The majority’s opinion implies that we may reach a decision without even an advisory report from the master—for, without findings of fact on an important issue, the report gives us no advice at all.
-2-
Despite my disagreement with the majority’s reasoning, I am satisfied that the majority’s result is fair, and that a remand for findings is not necessary. I reach this conclusion only by taking as true all of appellant’s testimony on the subject of appellee's mistreatment of her.2 So taken, appellant’s testimony nevertheless reveals that “[her] conduct . was so predominantly destructive to the marital relationship in its many and varied instances of indignities, that in totality the husband’s indiscretions were . minimal as contrasted to the prolonged and extreme conduct displayed by the wife.” Sells v. Sells, 228 Pa.Super. 331, 335, 323 A.2d 20, 22 (1974). Therefore, as in Sells, it was satisfactorily proved that appellee was innocent and injured.

. I have elsewhere reviewed the difficulties I find in harmonizing these principles of review in divorce cases. Coxe v. Coxe, 246 Pa.Super. 231, 369 A.2d 1297 (1976) (Dissenting Opinion by Spaeth, J.).

. This may be what the majority has done; I cannot be sure. The majority states only that “[ujpon a review of the record, we find sufficient evidence to explicitly hold that appellee is an innocent and injured spouse,” At 298, and later mentions some of appellant’s allegations. Id. at 299.