Reeves v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 10 September 1930
• Citation: 151 A. 474
• Parties: REEVES v. REEVES.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

151 A. 474

REEVES

v. REEVES.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

Sept. 10, 1930.

Syllabus by the Court.

Evidence examined, and held,that petitioner has established his charges of adultery and that defendant has not sustained her recriminatory charges.

Syllabus by the Court.

Where defendant pleads recrimination, the rule requires proof of the commission of a matrimonial offense by petitioner.

Divorce suit by John Reeder Reeves against Margaret D. Reeves. Decree for petitioner advised.

Edward T. Moore, of Passaic, for petitioner.

Ward & McGinnis, of Paterson, for defendant.

LEWIS, VICE CHANCELLOR.

This action was instituted by John R. Reeves, former pastor of the First Reformed Church, of Hawthorne, N. J., against his wife for absolute divorce on the ground of adultery. The outstanding testimony offered to sustain the petitioner's charge is given by the two children—a daughter and son of the parties—and it is persuasive.

Petitioner alleges that on certain dates defendant committed adultery with one Charles D. Petry. The co-respondent did not avail himself of his privilege to intervene and file an answer. The wife interposed an answer denying the adultery and setting up two defenses by way of recrimination only, viz.: Adultery alleged to have been committed by the petitioner some ten years ago and also setting up allegations of extreme cruelty on the part of the petitioner towards her.

I am convinced that the petitioner has established the essential allegations of the petition.

Besides corroborative testimony showing an undue intimacy between the defendant and the co-respondent, clandestine visits to the home of the parties in the absence of petitioner, and particularly the exchange of intimate notes between the defendant and the co-respondent in church during services conducted by the petitioner, there was credible testimony directly showing the commission of the offenses charged.

The boy Edward, the son of the parties, told a straightforward story to the effect that one night he was awakened by toothache and called to his mother. She was in the hallway on the second floor of the parsonage at the time, on her way to the bedroom with the co-respondent, and she attempted to screen the co-respondent from the sight of the boy, and then sent the co-respondent into the bedroom closing the door after him, and then attended to the son's toothache. This testimony points clearly in one direction only, that is, to the guilt of the defendant and her paramour. Under the circumstances, there could have been no reason or excuse for the presence of the co-respondent on the bedroom floor of the parsonage at that hour of the night.

The boy fixes the time as being around the first of January, 1928. There was testimony tending to show that during this month the co-respondent was confined to his home because of an illness. Accordingly the boy may have been mistaken as to the date, as to which there was nothing to fix it in his memory, but there is no doubt in my mind that he told the truth as to the incident which he witnessed.

Frances, the daughter of the parties, testified that on May 29, 1928, the day before Memorial Bay, the father was away from home and she had gone to bed and to sleep. Being awakened by voices downstairs and thinking that her father had returned, she ran downstairs to greet him. When she was close to the bottom of the stairway she saw the defendant lying on a couch in the sitting room opposite the foot of the stairway and the co-respondent lying on top of defendant, obviously, in flagrante delicto. She distinctly recognized both her mother and the co-respondent. Alarmed at what she saw, she ran back upstairs to bed without having made her presence known. Later that same night petitioner came home and found defendant in the sitting room only partially dressed. He commented on this condition and she gave him an explanation which he soon found to be false. Both the defendant and co-respondent admit that Petry was at the parsonage that night. There is testimony that he went away, but no testimony except his own statement that he did not return later that night.

Each of these children were intelligent and mature for their ages, and each of them told a clear and straightforward story, and the court attaches full credence to their testimony. Both of them were subjected to severe...