Court Opinion

ID: 9631317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:34:06.895567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:52.039227
License: Public Domain

Markell, J.,
delivered the following dissenting opinion.
I dissent from the decision and the opinion because (1) the evidence does not show that either party is entitled to a divorce and (2) the opinion is a departure from the decisions of this court by an extension of the scope of both (a) cruelty (apparently not a basis of the decision and therefore not a necessary or relevant subject of discussion) and (b) constructive desertion, as grounds for divorce.
If we assume that the circumstances attending the move by the husband and his secretary to the triangular husband-secretary-wife home, two weeks before the wife went, would not have entitled the wife to a divorce on the ground of adultery, they would at least have justified *294her in refusing to follow or to return to him. Shilbach v. Shilbach, 138 Md. 56, 59; Meeks v. Meeks, 189 Md. 80, 87; Thomas v. Thomas, 197 Md. 15, 21, 78 A. 2d 225, 227. The same would seem to be true if the wife had left — his roof or his bed — after the belated ejection of the secretary from the house, but after his continued intensive cultivation of her acquaintance outside the house. If the termination of “marital relations” was at the wife’s instance, she was not thereby guilty of desertion or any marital offense and there is no basis for a divorce to the husband from the wife. To say that the wife is entitled to a divorce from the husband is a very different matter.
In Fleegle v. Fleegle, 136 Md. 630, it was held, and in later cases it was reiterated, that refusal of “marital relations” without just cause constitutes “desertion”, as a ground for divorce. But never before have these cases been given the extensive gloss given them in the instant case. “It is beyond question that there may be a desertion although the husband and wife continue to live under the same roof. For desertion, as applied to husband and wife, signifies something more than merely ceasing to live together. It means ceasing to live together as husband and wife.” Refusal ceases to be an element. In other words, any cessation of “marital relations” constitutes desertion, of one spouse by the other, and if one spouse’s conduct justifies the other in refusing, the former and not the latter is guilty of desertion. In the instant case the wife naturally (as her testimony shows) was glad to be rid of him (so far as she was rid of him) and made no effort to regain his attention. She was under no obligation to do so. But if, notwithstanding his conduct, she demanded from him token recognition of her minority interest in his affections then she was at least required to say so before charging him with refusal.
Peculiarly applicable to divorce cases is the rule that when the trial judge sees and hears the witnesses this court will not reverse on a question of credibility unless *295the trial judge was clearly wrong. But I know of no magic by which a trial judge by looking at two spouses and hearing them testify can determine which (if either) is telling the truth, necessarily without corroboration, about the ultimate whys and wherefores of their most intimate relations — or lack of relations. I think the settled policy of this State not to grant divorces on light and trivial grounds would be inverted and the output (already sufficient) of collusive and other perjured divorces increased by the decision and opinion in the instant case.
As I have said, the discussion of cruelty in the opinion seems entirely foreign to the instant case. Be that as it may, neither the cases cited nor any other case in this court supports the asserted trend of decisions broadening “cruelty” from physical cruelty to the fantastic forms of “mental cruelty” that are recognized in the large divorce mills.
In recent cases we have noted that the fact that a wife continues to live under the same roof does not indicate that she regards her husband’s acts of violence as creating “danger to life, limb or health.” Maranto v. Maranto, 192 Md. 214, 220-221; Collins v. Collins, 184 Md. 655, 662; Schriver v. Schriver, 185 Md. 227, 231.
I think the decree of divorce should be reversed and the bill dismissed, without prejudice, however, to any bill for divorce on the ground of adultery committed after cessation of marital relations between the parties.