Court Opinion

ID: 9762297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:19:09.41837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:32.957433
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge:
This is an appeal from Decree entered December 17, 1980, after hearing on appellant-wife’s exceptions to the Master’s *264report, finding that appellant-wife committed wilful and malicious desertion, and was absent from the habitation of the injured and innocent spouse, without reasonable cause, for and during the term and space of two years.1 The decree divorced the parties from the bonds of matrimony.
Appellant-wife asserts on appeal that:
(1) Appellee-husband is precluded from claiming that he had sufficient cause to leave the marital residence since this has already been litigated and determined against him; and
(2) The evidence presented by appellee-husband is insufficient under the law to establish either wilful and malicious desertion by appellant-wife or that appellee-husband is an innocent and injured spouse. We find that appellant-wife prevails on both grounds.
The complaint in the instant action at No. 0429 July 1978 filed by appellee-husband herein recited that the prior actions in divorce filed by appellee-husband were:
“An action filed at 3946, July of 1974, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Family Division, June 26, 1974. Order of Court withdrawing action in divorce filed December 1,1974, and an action filed at 0263, October Term, of 1976, wherein the divorce on the grounds of indignities were denied.”
In fact, the record reveals that No. 0263, October Term, of 1976 (hereinafter referred to as the 1976 action) asserted both indignities and desertion as grounds. The following facts with regard to the procedural posture of the grounds asserted were found in the 1976 action by the honorable court en banc which heard exceptions to that Master’s report filed by appellee-husband herein:2
“A side bar conference was held off the record after which the plaintiff moved to amend his complaint to strike *265the grounds of desertion and elected to proceed on indignities only.”
On exceptions, appellee-husband then claimed that the Master had required him to elect to proceed on either the grounds of indignities to the person or desertion. The court found no such requirement on the record, but reviewed the record with regard to both asserted grounds due to appelleehusband’s assertion that he did not, in fact, wish to abandon the claim of desertion. The court held:
“After a careful independent review of the whole record, this court is convinced that, if the plaintiff had in fact been put to an election, such ruling would be harmless error.
“We are therefore satisfied by the record that the defendant has not indulged in a course of conduct which warrants a decree in divorce on the grounds of indignities to the person, nor did the defendant desert the plaintiff and thus the plaintiff is not entitled to the granting of a divorce from the bonds of matrimony.”
Appellee-husband has not appealed from the order entered in the 1976 action, nor does he claim any error in that decree. He simply asserts that the former action related to indignities only and is irrelevant to the instant action.
We find that in the 1976 action, adjudication of which was entered March 12, 1978, Judges Brosky and Narick specifically found that appellee-husband had engaged in a course of conduct which would have justified appellant-wife in leaving the marital abode. This finding was made after appellee-husband sought to assert his claim of desertion in that action after having abandoned the claim before the master. Even if, due to the confused procedural posture of the claim of desertion in that action, we do not treat it as a final ruling on the ultimate issue, nonetheless the findings of fact cannot be ignored. Those findings are unchallenged by appellee-husband.
However, in the instant case even if this court looks at the testimony by appellee-husband as totally true, what appel*266lee-husband has testified to is his own desertion of appellant-wife.
While this court must give full consideration to the Master’s specific findings as to credibility,3 as well stated in Dukmen v. Dukmen, 278 Pa.Super. 530, 534, 420 A.2d 667, 670 (1980):
“In a divorce case it is the responsibility of this court to make a de novo evaluation of the record of the proceedings and to decide independently of the master and the lower court whether a legal cause of action in divorce exists. Steinke v. Steinke, 238 Pa.Super. 74, 357 A.2d 674 (1975). The master’s recommendation is advisory only.”
See Nacrelli v. Nacrelli, 288 Pa. 1, 136 A. 228 (1927).
A review of the entire record in this action, including the findings of fact included in the record of this action made in the related 1976 action and those made December 11,1980 in opinion by Kaplan, J., reveals the following:
“On Labor Day, 1963, the defendant [appellant-wife] had an operation to remove a brain tumor.”4
“After her operation, testimony showed that the plaintiff [appellee-husband] took virtually no interest in his wife’s physical or mental well-being. Rather, he spent little time with his wife and son, eventually started to see another woman, and finally left his wife eight months after her brain tumor was removed.”5
Appellee-husband testified6 that in May of 1964, he and his wife argued, and the following occurred:
*267“I think I was in the kitchen. We had a phone in the bedroom. She went to the bedroom and she came out. She said: ‘My dad wants to talk to you.’ I said: ‘For what reason.’ She said: T told him what happened.’ I said: ‘Well, it is none of his business.’ She said: ‘Well, he wants to talk to you. He is going to knock some sense in your head.’ ”
Appellee-husband testified that he did “get on the phone” with appellant-wife’s father and has no idea whether her father came to the home because:
“[W]hen I hung up, I left.”
Appellee-husband testified that he did “visit” with his wife at what had been their marital abode, but that the reason he did not return to live with her was:
“Well, because first of all in trying to get back with my wife, there was no way that I would have any kind of a life with her unless I would try to, you know, try to make her understand that it was for her and I was trying to get together; but every time we tried, she would just keep arguing with me; and I just didn’t feel I wanted to go through that at that time.”
As stated by this court in Melli v. Melli, 253 Pa.Super. 286, 384 A.2d 1347, 1349 (1978), citing Zorn v. Zorn, 382 Pa. 319, 114 A.2d 907 (1955) constructive desertion is made out when:
“The innocent spouse [shows] that he or she was wilfully or maliciously put out of the common home by force or justifiable fear of immediate bodily harm . . . . ”
While the conversation described by appellee-husband, even if taken as unjustified, might cause appellee-husband to absent himself for an hour or so while tempers cooled simply to avoid argument, it is very far from constituting an immediate threat of harm of any kind. Furthermore, the conduct by appellee-husband found as a fact by Judges Brosky and Narick clearly did justify appellant-wife in seeking comfort from her family and in asking her family to intercede for her to try to talk appellee-husband into changing his conduct. It is clear that appellee-husband deserted *268appellant-wife without justification and further, by his own admission, refused to move back into the marital abode. In this light, the later purported attempts at reconciliation become irrelevant. While they might, if appellant-wife’s testimony is totally ignored, rise to a defense to an action by appellant-wife for divorce, the case does not come to us in this posture. A deserted party is “not required to seek a reconciliation.” Yohey v. Yohey, 205 Pa.Super. 329, 208 A.2d 902, 905 (1965) and see Chasman v. Chasman, 161 Pa.Super. 77, 81, 53 A.2d 876 (1947) (“Libellant [deserted party] had no duty to invite her back or to attempt reconciliation.”)
Finally, under our duty of de novo review of the record, we note that the appellee-husband’s testimony is replete with inconsistencies and is not credible on its face. In light of this, and in light of prior findings of fact based upon the testimony by independent witnesses, we find that the testimony by appellant-wife that she did, and does, wish to resume marital life with appellee-husband if he will divest himself of other women and if he will discontinue subjecting her to conduct no spouse need put up with, should be given full credit.
In this case, appellee-husband has failed to show that he was wilfully and maliciously deserted without reasonable cause.
The decree of the lower court is therefore reversed, appellee-husband’s request for divorce from the bonds of matrimony is denied, and a decree is entered for appellant-wife in this action.
WIEAND, J., files a dissenting opinion.

. This action was brought under Act of May 2, 1929, P.L.1237, 23 P.S. § 10(d) and is governed by that act as interpreted by the appellate courts of the Commonwealth.

. Opinion by Judge Narick, March 12, 1978, p. 3.

. This court is totally reliant upon the judge of the lower court as to the content of the Master’s report since the said report is not included in the record to this court and cannot be located after the efforts of the Prothonotary of this court.

. Master’s report in 1976 action. That report found that “it is your Master’s opinion that the testimony of the plaintiff was not credible while that of the defendant was frank and responsive for the most part. Defendant’s testimony was corroborated by witnesses .... ”

. - Master’s report in 1976 action.

. Hearing of February 6, 1979, 10-11, and 13.