Cook v. Cook

• Citation: 171 A. 722,166 Md. 704
• Decision Date: 04 April 1934
• Docket Number: 3,48.
• Parties: COOK v. COOK.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

171 A. 722

166 Md. 704

COOK v. COOK.

Nos. 3, 48.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

April 4, 1934

Appeals from Circuit Court, Talbot County; Wm. H. Adkins, Judge.

Action by Daniel H. Cook against Wilhelmina Ford Cook. From a decree granting plaintiff a divorce and from an order refusing defendant counsel fees and costs on appeal, defendant appeals.

Decree affirmed, and order appealed from reversed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and PATTISON, URNER, OFFUTT, DIGGES PARKE, and SLOAN, JJ.

John Lank Prettyman, of Easton, for appellant.

G Elbert Marshall, Easton, for appellee.

SLOAN Judge.

We have here two appeals taken by the defendant in the same case. In the first one she appeals from a decree granting the plaintiff an absolute divorce; in the second she appeals from an order refusing her counsel fees and costs on her appeal from the decree of divorce.

On October 2, 1928, the parties were married at Baltimore. The plaintiff, Daniel H. Cook, is a resident of Easton, Md. The defendant, Wilhelmina Ford Cook, a widow, was for many years prior to her marriage to the plaintiff a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 60 years of age and she 55. In their younger days, before her first marriage, they had known each other. During her widowhood the plaintiff had written her proposing marriage. He sent her the money to come to Baltimore, where they were married at the home of her brother by a Mormon elder, she being a member of that church. They arrived at Easton on October 3d, where they resided in the same house with his mother, his sister, and the sister's husband until on or about September 26, 1929, just a week less than one year from the marriage, when the defendant left the plaintiff's house, not to return until she came to Easton to defend this suit. There was in the meantime one interruption or intermission when the defendant left abruptly on a visit to her brother in Baltimore, returning in a week or so. The bill of complaint, filed January 17, 1933, simply charges that the defendant, without any just cause or reason deserted and abandoned the plaintiff and has declared her intention to live with him no longer, and that the abandonment has continued uninterruptedly for more than three years, with no reasonable hope or expectation of reconciliation. The defendant, answering, said "that for the most part" the plaintiff's conduct was unkind, unaffectionate, and devoid of the attentive interest and customary courtesies expected of and displayed by a husband toward his wife. Denying that she left without cause or reason, or that she had ever declared her intention never to live with him again, the answer went on to say "that although she did everything in her power to accommodate and accustom herself to the surroundings of the home which plaintiff provided for her, yet is was quite impossible for her to habituate herself to the treatment meted out to her by her husband and by her in-laws (mother, sister and brother-in-law of Complainant), with whom she was compelled to live and work and daily and hourly associate. And your respondent avers that the treatment allotted to her by her husband became unendurable and unbearable, she being subjected to hard drudgery and labor and harsh indignities to her were heaped upon her by Complainant and by members of his family and household, they and each of them designing to disrupt the peaceful and loving status which should have existed between this Respondent and her husband, and the conduct of the Complainant and of his family toward this Respondent became so intolerable, abusive and unbearable that Respondent repeatedly remonstrated with Complainant and explained to him that he was assuming the attitude of forcing her to leave him and she implored him to provide a home for her away from his family, your Respondent believing that his family influence with Complainant might not be so pronounced against her if they could live apart from such environment--all of which, however, Complainant most emphatically and unequivocally refused to do, to the end that Respondent was irresistibly forced to abandon the abode of Complainant and his family and to seek shelter with her own people." Although the defendant attempts by her answer to set up the contention that her leaving the house was forced upon her by unendurable conditions existing in the home to which she was taken, her own testimony utterly absolves the plaintiff from any blame whatever and fails to show any reason or excuse for her leaving except her own restiveness and perhaps her homesickness for her daughters in Utah.

The plaintiff was and is engaged in the florist business at Easton, Md. Residing in the home were the plaintiff, his mother, aged 82 years or more, his sister, Mrs. Owens, and the sister's husband. The plaintiff ever since the marriage has been in a delicate state of health, and the conduct of his business has depended largely upon his sister, whose reward has been her board and keep. Residing with them is the mother, with whom it has not been easy to get along, but the defendant in her testimony says that before she came to the house her husband told her that his mother was an old lady and was very hard to get along with and, being asked what was the relationship between her and Mrs. Henry, pleasant or otherwise, replied, "Pardon me, but I don't think any relationship with Mrs. Henry was ever pleasant with anybody." Yet she says that only one of the two unpleasant experiences with the sister was due to Mrs. Owens talking sharply to her mother, and this is the only reference to any clash at all between the defendant and her mother-in-law. The only other reference in the testimony to any difficulty with Mrs. Owens was a rebuke from Mrs. Owens for some unkind remark made by the defendant about the plaintiff. The plaintiff testifies that the morning after her arrival at Easton the defendant expressed her regret at the move she had made and declared that her heart was breaking from disappointment; that she had made a fool of herself; that she was sorry she came down there; and that their bedroom was not as big as a bathroom she had at Salt Lake, and, as he said, she "cried and carried on a lot before she got out of bed." The maid who was then employed in the house doing the cooking and general housework testified that a week later she heard the defendant demand of the plaintiff that he agree to let her go to Baltimore to her church twice a month, there being no Mormon Church in Easton, and once a year to visit her daughter in Salt Lake City, and that she wanted this in writing. The defendant in her testimony denied that she complained any about the quarters or that she had made this demand on the plaintiff, and said, "We had discussed that and I knew the home wasn't to be larger." Asked, "You had an understanding about the room before you came?" answered, "Yes, I knew all about it." Even if there was any discontent or disappointment on her part at this time, it could not be chargeable to the other occupants of the house, as they were away from the home when the defendant arrived there, having been called to Laurel, Del., by the serious illness of a brother of Mrs. Owens, where the mother-in-law and sister-in-law remained until October 17th.

The only evidence in the record as to what occurred at the time of her leaving is the following testimony given by the plaintiff himself:

"Q. Please tell what did occur immediately before she left your

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