Mann v. Mann
| Decision Date | 29 December 1956 |
| Docket Number | 3645 |
| Citation | 127 A.2d 666,387 Pa. 230 |
| Parties | Arlen B. MANN v. Rosalyn MANN, Charles Brown, Beatrice Brown, Garfield Savings and Loan Association of Philadelphia and Broad Street Trust Company. Appeal of Rosalyn MANN, Charles Brown and Beatrice Brown. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued November 20, 1956
Appeal, No. 244, Jan. T., 1956, from decree of Court of Common Pleas No. 2 of Philadelphia County, March T., 1955 No. 10100, in equity, in case of Arlen B. Mann v. Rosalyn Mann et al. Decree affirmed.
Equity. Before CARROLL, J.
Adjudication filed directing division of cash assets between husband and wife and disposition of other property; exceptions to adjudication dismissed and final decree entered. Defendants appealed.
Decree affirmed at appellants' costs.
Colbert C. McClain, for appellants.
Edward I. Weisberg, with him David N. Feldman, for appellee.
Before JONES, BELL, CHIDSEY and ARNOLD, JJ.
This is an appeal from a final decree in an equity suit instituted by the plaintiff against his estranged (later divorced) wife and her parents to obtain the money value or return of certain personal property (principally furniture and personal effects) which the plaintiff averred that the defendants acting in concert, had removed from the matrimonial domicil of himself and wife. The complaint also prayed for an accounting of certain funds which had been removed by the estranged wife from a joint bank account of herself and husband. The defendants, in a joint answer, denied knowledge of the whereabouts or the disposition of the plaintiff's personal effects and asserted title in the wife to most of the furniture and household furnishings. The defendants also contended that the fund in controversy was their sole property - a part of it representing a conditional gift by the wife's parents to the plaintiff and his spouse (the condition whereof failed of fulfillment) and a part representing he estranged wife's share of property owned jointly by her and her husband.
After a hearing, the chancellor, on motion, entered a preliminary injunction impounding all of the contested property which was in the defendants' possession. At the hearing on the merits of the complaint and answer, the testimony adduced was irreconcilably conflicting with the necessary result that almost all of the chancellor's findings of fact embody an exercise of his power to pass upon the credibility of the witnesses and to determine the operative facts accordingly. In most instances the chancellor resolved the issue of credibility in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendants. In the adjudication and decree nisi, which ultimately became the final decree, the chancellor held that all of the household furnishings were owned by the plaintiff and his wife by the entireties and were, therefore, to be divided equally between them and that the fund in question represented gifts to either one or the other or both the plaintiff and his wife which, by being deposited by them in the joint account, also became entireties property. As the plaintiff had received a portion of the fund in bank prior to the separation from his wife, he was charged therewith by the chancellor who divided the residue equally between the plaintiff and his wife.
The chancellor also held that the plaintiff's personal effects, which had been taken by the defendants, were to be returned to the plaintiff or their value paid to him and that certain specified wedding gifts or their value should be divided equally between the plaintiff and his wife. As the proofs of the value of the property in controversy were too meager to support a judicial appraisal thereof, the chancellor decreed that the parties should, within thirty days, arrive at an equitable division of the...
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