Linnekogel v. Linnekogel

• Decision Date: 11 October 1923
• Docket Number: No. 62.,62.
• Citation: 122 A. 372
• Parties: LINNEKOGEL v. LINNEKOGEL.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

122 A. 372

LINNEKOGEL

v. LINNEKOGEL.

No. 62.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Oct. 11, 1923.

Minturn, Kalisch, and Heppenheimer, JJ., dissenting.

Appeal from Court of Chancery.

Divorce petition by Elma Linnekogel against George W. Linnekogel. From a decree refusing a divorce, petitioner appeals. Affirmed.

On appeal from a decree of the Court of Chancery, advised by Vice Chancellor Bentley, who delivered the following opinion orally:

"This is a petition for an absolute divorce, on the ground of constructive desertion.

"The parties were married on the 23d day of April, 1912, and immediately commenced to live in Jersey City, at the home of the wife. The petition states that almost from the beginning of their married life the defendant practiced a course of cruelty and abusive treatment toward her, and then sets out in detail the acts of extreme cruelty which she says drove her from her husband and justified her in remaining away from him for the statutory period. There has been an abundance of proof of the marriage and of the residence, required under our act, leaving only the subject of the husband's conduct against his wife to be considered.

"The petitioner charges that he has been guilty of habitual, or almost habitual, drunkenness; that he has used profane language to her, and indulged in a systematic course of conduct to keep her awake in the nighttime. She says, and in this she is corroborated, that he would go to bed at an early hour in the evening, while she would still be engaged until a much later hour with her household duties, and then, having refreshed himself with some slumber, would quarrel with her continuously from the time that she would go to bed until late hours, sometimes extending beyond the dawn. She also says that at times the defendant would come home so drunk that he would fall out of bed, and it would be necessary to secure the services of her son to put him back into bed, and has described his threats of suicide in the pond upon their place in Ramsey as another sample of his ingenuity in this respect.

"In my opinion, the love that this woman had for this man was killed almost immediately after the marriage ceremony. She has testified, and I confidently believe it to be true, that they quarreled because he wanted her to continue to keep boarders instead of taking her support and the support of her infant children upon his shoulders, as he should have done. At that time he was not maimed, nor had he lost any of his faculties. From that time on, as I said before, I believe that the petitioner lost all love for this man, with the consequence that a most pitiful condition of affairs existed in the household.

"The children of the petitioner's former marriage have shown, by their attitude on the stand even more than by the testimony that they have given, their undying and consuming hatred for the defendant. It seems to me that the defendant is a difficult man to live with or get along with. He is opinionated and obstinate; seems to be very confident of his own opinions, as shown on the stand in using words, time after time, the meaning of which I do not believe he even knows, and which did not fit in with the context of the sentence. He has apparently never exerted himself as a man should to support his wife, but has permitted her to go out and toil almost like a laborer to make money,

"I might say, in passing, that there were a great many 'blind alleys' opened up in the trial of the issues in this case, which I am not going to regard at all, such as the testimony as to the relationship between Mrs. Linnekogel and some man named Beach. I do not believe there is a scintilla of truth in that insinuation, or that that is the reason why she wishes to rid herself of this man.

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