Donnelly v. Donnelly

• Decision Date: 31 October 1951
• Docket Number: No. 10,10
• Citation: 84 A.2d 89,198 Md. 341
• Parties: DONNELLY v. DONNELLY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 341

198 Md. 341

84 A.2d 89

DONNELLY v. DONNELLY.

No. 10.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 31, 1951.

R. Lewis Bainder, Baltimore, for appellant.

John S. White, Hyattsville, and C. Orman Manahan, Ellicott City, for appellee.

Before MARBURY, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, HENDERSON and MARKELL, JJ.

GRASON, Judge.

Henry Arthur Donnelly and Elsie Virginia Donnelly were married on March 8, 1935, at Martinsburg, West Virginia. The marriage ceremony was conducted in a perfectly legal manner and they were supposedly validly married. Prior thereto Elsie was married to a man by the name of John Blankenship and had a son by him. The Donnellys lived together as man and wife, continuously, for eleven years, when differences arose between and they separated in 1946.

On December 23, 1935, these parties executed an agreement with the Hanover Banking and Building Association of Baltimore City, a body corporate, whereby they agreed to purchase a tract of land in Anne Arundel County, containing about 27 1/2 acres, with improvements.

Subsequent to the separation Donnelly instituted, in the Circuit Court for Howard County, a divorce proceeding in which he alleged that Elsie had abandoned and deserted him, and prayed for a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. At the trial of this divorce case Donnelly produced Blankenship, the former husband of Mrs. Donnelly, whereupon the chancellor in the divorce proceeding, on the 'twenty-sixth day of January, 1949, * * * Adjudged, Ordered and Decreed that the marriage of the said Henry A. Donnelly to the said Elsie B. Donnelly at Martinsburg, West Virginia, on the eighth day of March, 1935, be, and the same is hereby, declared null and void'.

On May 2, 1949, Henry A. Donnelly filed, in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, in Equity, a bill of complaint against Elsie Virginia Donnelly, wherein he prayed, among other things, that the agreement made on the 23rd day of December, 1935, for the sale by the said Building Association to Henry Arthur Donnelly and Elsie Virginia Donnelly, his wife, 'be declared null and void and of no force and effect in law'.

An answer was filed, and on the same day the defendant in the original bill filed a cross-bill wherein she prayed, among other things, 'That a trustee or trustees may be appointed to make sale of the premises hereinbefore mentioned (the property covered by the agreement of sale aforesaid) and to divide the proceeds thereof among the parties entitled, according to their respective interests'. An answer was filed to the cross bill by Donnelly, and testimony taken before the chancellor, consisting of only two witnesses, Henry A. Donnelly and Elsie Virginia Donnelly, the parties to this case.

On February 8, 1951, the chancellor dismissed the original bill and '* * * further Adjudged, Ordered and Decreed that the defendant and cross-plaintiff, Elsie V. Donnelly, be, and she is hereby declared to be entitled to an undivided one-half equitable interest as a tenant in common in the property mentioned and described in these proceedings', and further adjudged that the plaintiff pay the costs of the proceedings. From this decree both parties to the proceedings appealed to this court.

Donnelly contends that as Elsie V. Donnelly was not legally married to him on the 23rd day of December, 1935, when the Building Association agreed to sell to him and Elsie V. Donnelly, 'his wife', the property aforesaid, that Elsie V. Donnelly has no interest in the property. Elsie V. Donnelly contends that the chancellor was correct in decreeing that she was entitled to 'an undivided one-half equitable interest as tenant in common' in said property, but she says that the chancellor should have gone further and appointed trustees for the sale of said property and for the division of the proceeds thereof between herself and Donnelly.

Much testimony was devoted in establishing the financial condition of the parties both before and after the date of the contract in question, but the view we take of this case renders such testimony immaterial.

Donnelly met Elsie Donnelly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For a number of years before their marriage he went to see her regularly. He undoubtedly wanted to marry her, for they were married. His testimony is that she told him her husband was dead. He knew perfectly well that she thought she was a widow. He said he thought it was unfair to ask her about her past life. It seems passing strange that Donnelly was so uninterested in the past life of the woman he wanted to marry that he did not inquire, or that they did not talk about her past life. When asked several times about what she told him, he reiterated the answer that she told him 'that her husband was dead'. He testified that he did not know Elsie Donnelly had a son by Blankenship.

On the contrary Mrs. Donnelly testified that before their marriage they frequently discussed her marriage status. She said she told him that she married Blankenship in 1918, and two years thereafter he deserted her; that six months after the desertion she heard from Blankenship, but thereafter she never heard of him, and she supposed he was dead. According to her testimony, Donnelly went with her to see the parents of Blankenship, in Baltimore City, and the mother of Blankenship told her, in Donnelly's presence, that her son was dead and that he had a life insurance policy in which she (the mother) was the beneficiary, and she collected the life insurance. Mrs. Donnelly said that she was still concerned about her marriage status, and that Donnelly told her he would take her to a lawyer friend of his who practiced law at Homestead, Pennsylvania; that they went to see this lawyer and, whereas the record does not specifically disclose that the lawyer said that she could marry, the inference is inescapable that he told both Mrs. Donnelly and Donnelly that Mrs. Donnelly could validly marry.

Donnelly says that all this was after their marriage and was brought about by an investigation by the Veterans Administration of whether or not Blankenship was dead. But the chancellor found, and we think he was correct, that the trip to Baltimore to see the parents of Blankenship, and the trip to Pennsylvania to see the lawyer at Homestead, were before they were married, in 1935, at Martinsburg, West Virginia. There can be no doubt, from this record, that Donnelly and Elsie Donnelly thought that Blankenship was dead and that their marriage was perfectly legal.

The facts in this case are entirely different from the facts in the Hutson v. Hutson case, 168 Md. 182, 177 A. 177, 180. In that case Hutson, a widower, married Florence B. Hutson on May 15, 1933, and caused certain property belonging to him to be transferred to himself and Mrs. Hutson as tenants by the entireties. In February, 1934, Hutson discovered that Mrs. Hutson was legally married to a man by the name of Wagner. On February 7, 1934, Hutson filed a bill for annulment of his marriage to Florence Hutson. There was fraud on the part of Mrs. Hutson as to what she told Hutson concerning her marriage status. The decree was granted annulling the marriage, and was affirmed by this court. In the Hutson case this court quoted from Lang v. Wilmer, 131 Md. 215, 224, 101 A. 706, 709, 2 A.L.R. 1698, as follows: "The intention of the grantor * * * should prevail unless in conflict with some settled rule of law."

It is also said in the Hutson case: "The case is also to be distinguished from cases in which people living together as husband and wife, and in good faith believing themselves to have that status, acquire property by their joint labor and enterprise, and take title to the same as tenants by the entireties."

It is conceded that the marriage between these parties was a nullity, and properly so. If...