Roberts v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 20 March 1931
• Docket Number: No. 13.,13.
• Citation: 154 A. 95
• Parties: ROBERTS v. ROBERTS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

154 A. 95

ROBERTS

v. ROBERTS.

No. 13.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 20, 1931.

Appeal from Circuit Court of Baltimore City; Walter I. Dawkins, Judge.

Suit by Norma Marie Roberts against Carrol Brent Roberts, who filed a cross-bill. Decree for complainant, and respondent appeals.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Argued before BOND, C. J., and PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, DIGGES, PARKE, and SLOAN, JJ.

Charles S. Hayden and Horton S. Smith, both of Baltimore, for appellant.

Hiram C. Griffin, of Baltimore, for appellee.

OFFUTT, J.

On March 28, 1929, Norma Marie Roberts, the appellee in this case, filed in the circuit court of Baltimore city her bill of complaint against Carrol Brent Roberts, her husband, who is the appellant in it she alleged their marriage; that of the marriage three children were born who were living and in her custody; that the appellant on or about March 3, 1929, without just cause or reason, abandoned and deserted her; and that such abandonment and desertion were final and without hope or expectation of reconciliation. Upon these allegations she asked for a divorce a mensa et thoro, the custody of their infant children, permanent alimony and alimony pendente lite, counsel fees, and money to prosecute the suit. The defendant in his answer denied the alleged desertion, and on May 31, 1929, filed a cross-bill against his wife in which he alleged that she had refused him "complete marital intercourse" for a period of ten or eleven years; that since November, 1928, she had denied him all sexual contact whatever, and had abandoned and deserted him; that such abandonment and desertion had continued uninterruptedly for at least three years, was deliberate and final and beyond any reasonable hope of reconciliation; and prayed that he be divorced a vinculo matrimonii from the appellee and awarded the custody of their children. The appellee filed a combined answer and demurrer to the cross-bill, in which she denied that the facts alleged in it entitled the appellant to the relief prayed, and denied the charge that she had refused him "complete marital intercourse." and denied that she had abandoned him. The court ignored the demurrer to the cross-bill, but tried the case on the issues of fact raised by the pleadings, and at the conclusion of the trial decreed that the appellee be divorced a mensa et thoro from the appellant, that she have the custody of their three children, and that "the said Norma Marie Roberts, the complainant in said original Bill of Complaint, is entitled to alimony from the said Carrol B. Roberts and that in payment of said alimony the said Carrol B. Roberts shall pay the water rent, State and City taxes and alley paving taxes assessed against the property known as No. 3822 Bonner Road, Baltimore, Maryland, for the year 1929 and all interest and penalties due thereon until the same are paid, and shall pay the semi-annual installment of the ground rent due on said premises on March 1, 1930, amounting to forty ($40.00) dollars and shall regularly hereafter pay when due and payable the water rent, State and City taxes, ground rent and other public charges that may be levied or assessed against said property, and shall pay unto Martin Schweitzer and Mary J. Schweitzer, his wife, as and when due and payable the interest due them under a mortgage on said property held by them on which there is a principle amount due of seven hundred ($700.00) dollars, and shall pay unto Sarah R. Thieme, as and when due and payable the interest due her under a promissory note for five hundred ($500.00) dollars held by her and signed by the said Norma Marie Roberts and Carrol B. Roberts; and shall also pay unto the said Norma Marie Roberts direct to her and not through the Probation Department the sum of eighteen ($18.00) dollars per week for her support and for the support and maintenance of the said three minor children, all of said payments to continue until the further order of this Court.

"And it is further adjudged, ordered and decreed that the said Norma Marie Roberts and said three minor children are entitled to the exclusive use and possession of the said property known as No. 3822 Bonner Road, Baltimore, Maryland, the title to which property stands in the names of the said Norma Marie Roberts and Carrol B. Roberts as tenants by the entireties, in which property said Norma Marie Roberts and minor children now reside; it not being the intention, however, in any manner to change or disturb the character of the legal title of said property."

Assuming that the demurrer was waived, this appeal from the decree presents these questions: (1) Was the evidence sufficient to support so much of the decree as granted to the appellee a divorce a mensa et thoro from the appellant? (2) Was the appellant upon the pleadings and the evidence entitled to the relief prayed in his cross-bill? (3) Assuming that the appellee was entitled to alimony, was the court authorized to award it in the form announced in the decree? and (4) Is the appellant chargeable with the maintenance of his daughter Ethel Thieme Roberts, who became 18 years of age on October 27, 1930.

The evidence relating to the first question may be classified under two captions: (a) Did the appellant in fact abandon and desert the appellee? and (b) If he did, was the abandonment and desertion justified? There is no real dispute as to the facts relating to the separation of the parties and they may be thus stated: Roberts is a traveling salesman in the employ of the Baltimore branch of the United States Rubber Company, and in that employment earns, in addition to his expenses, $200 a month. He married the appellee on February 22, 1911, and from that time until March 4, 1929, lived with her in Baltimore. There are three children of the marriage, a daughter and two sons, who at the time the case was heard were aged respectively 17. 14, and 11 years. According to his means, Roberts appears to have supported his family in reasonable comfort to have been attached to his children, and until late years to have lived happily with his wife. His business required him to be away from his home much of the time, but that was unavoidable and was accepted as a natural and necessary incident of their family life. But for reasons more or less obscure for some time prior to March 4, 1929, the relations between Roberts and his wife underwent a change. He became moody, irritable, discontented, and fault finding, but even then there was no indication that he intended to abandon his home. On that date he left his home on one of his usual business trips, and it is conceded that when he left he had no intention of finally separating from his wife. But during his absence he received a letter, dated March 13, 1929, from her, to which on March 18th he replied by a letter in which, after complaining of her conduct, he said:

"I have thought and thought about our conversation, and we both are very far apart in our ideas and lives. It was in your place to make a home, and respect it, and you have not done this.

"I have given the very best years of my life to you, the children, and our home and I have nothing to show for them, and I have worried over this situation until I have nearly wrecked my own life. You have made this situation so intolerable that I cannot help but adopt your implied suggestion that if I don't like matters to get out. I have told you that I cannot stand for your lack of interest in our home, in me, in your own personal habits, your slovenness, and lack of pride is sickening.

"There is no use in going on enumerating the things that are bones of contention between us, and I think that you can see as well as I can that we cannot go along any longer as I have not the patience or nerve to carry along an existence that is a sham. Under these conditions you can see that we had better part and make the most of what days are ahead of us.

"There is therefore nothing for us to do but to break, and so I cannot tell you when I will ever be home again, I am going to try and make the most of what yet remains of my life. This may seem a hard letter, but I have had many hard days and years, and I cannot go any further. I have not the patience to try to reconstruct matters. I will try and get my clothes sometime, and what few things are mine, and hope that you will understand that this letter is written kindly and not in anger. Please take care of the children and don't learn them to hate me."

He also added the following schedule of his itinerary for the ensuing week:

"Monday

Wicomico

Hotel

Salisbury, Md.

Tuesday

"

"

""

Wednesday

"

"

""

Thursday

Avon

"

Easton "

Friday

I don't know where."

Standing alone, his letter is too ambiguous to support the conclusion that the writer intended it to announce a fixed and irrevocable intention on his part to abandon the appellee. There are indeed expressions in it upon which that construction might be placed, but, taken as a whole, it is not inconsistent with the theory that it was intended as an invitation for negotiations for the reformation of conduct of which Roberts complained. But his own testimony and his subsequent conduct remove any possible doubt as to its meaning, and compel the conclusion that he did by it intend to definitely and finally terminate the marital relation between him and his wife. When he left his home on March 4th, his children were ill, and in her letter to him of March 13th his wife wrote him of their condition, and in the letter made this somewhat cryptic statement: "Do you think you can find happiness by crushing the lives of three children? As for me I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He can guard that which I have committed unto Him."

While that statement had no apparent connection with anything else contained in the letter or disclosed by the evidence, it appears to have been intelligible and highly irritating to Roberts, for he said that not only...