Field v. Field
| Decision Date | 26 June 1920 |
| Citation | 236 Mass. 256,128 N.E. 9 |
| Parties | FIELD v. FIELD. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Report from Superior Court, Middlesex County; Franklin T. Hammond, Judge.
Suit for divorce by George R. Field against Ida F. Field. On report to the Supreme Judicial Court, after ruling by the superior court that it lacked jurisdiction. Libel dismissed.
John E. Crowley, of Boston, for libelant.
The parties were married February 1, 1908, in Fall River, where the wife was living; the husband at that time residing in Providence, R. I., and engaged there in business. After a wedding journey to Lowell they lived in Providence for about three weeks. In March, 1908, they went to Lowell and remained there five weeks, during which time the libelant ‘worked in [a] restaurant.’ They then returned to Providence, where they lived until November, 1915, when the libelee deserted the libelant. The husband continued to live in Providence for six months after the desertion, and in 1916 came to Waltham, in this commonwealth, where he has since resided.
The judge found that when the libellant and his wife went to Lowell, in March, he ‘thought that he might settle in Lowell if he liked the conditions, but that he never formed a definite intention to remain there’; that his going to Lowell did not work a change in his domicile, and it continued to be in Providence from the date of the marriage until he removed to Waltham. The libelant had not lived in this commonwealth for ‘five years last preceding the filing of the libel’ (R. L. c. 152, § 5), and the court had no jurisdiction to grant the libel if the libelant and libelee had never lived together as husband and wife in this commonwealth. R. L. c. 152, § 4. The provision in the statute that the parties must have lived together as husband and wife in this commonwealth in order that a decree of divorce may be granted means that they had a domicile here. Ross v. Ross, 103 Mass. 575;Weston v. Weston, 143 Mass. 274, 9 N. E. 557. When the parties went to Lowell in March, 1908, the husband did not intend to make his permanent home in that city; his stay depended upon circumstances. If conditions were favorable he might continue to live there; but he had no definite and fixed intention to remain and become a resident of that city and he did not acquire a domicile in this commonwealth.
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