Snyder v. Snyder

• Citation: 427 Pa.Super. 494,629 A.2d 977
• Parties: Marcia J. SNYDER, Appellee, v. Charles E. SNYDER, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 06 August 1993
• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania

Page 977

629 A.2d 977

427 Pa.Super. 494

Marcia J. SNYDER, Appellee, v. Charles E. SNYDER, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued April 29, 1993.

Filed Aug. 6, 1993.

Martin P. Mullaney, Lansdale, for appellee.

Before CAVANAUGH, WIEAND and HOFFMAN, JJ.

CAVANAUGH, Judge:

This appeal is from a Final Protection From Abuse Order which, inter alia, granted appellant's spouse sole and exclusive possession of the marital residence. The appellant raises three claims of error. We find the appellant's arguments unpersuasive and affirm.

The Petition For Protection From Abuse sub judice was filed pro se on October 19, 1992 in Montgomery County by appellee Marcia Snyder. The Petition the appellee filed is a standard form with various blanks to fill in or boxes to check in order to record pertinent information. Significant to this appeal she responded to the Petition's inquiries that on September 9, 1992, an incident of physical and verbal abuse occurred in the marital residence by appellant Charles Snyder. The appellee further alleged that the appellant was physically overpowering & threatened sexual abuse. He inflicted me with bruises about my arms, legs & hips. He screamed at me & called me names throughout the night while the children were trying to sleep.

The appellee requested the following relief by checking off preprepared items listed as "relief": (1) the defendant refrain from abusing, harassing or threatening the Plaintiff, or any Child or Relative of the plaintiff, in any place where they may be found; (2) the defendant be granted exclusive possession of the marital residence (located at 492 Hoffmansville Rd., Bechtelsville, PA); (3) the defendant be prohibited from having any direct contact with the plaintiff, plaintiff's relatives and/or children, either directly, or in writing or by telephone; (4) the Plaintiff be granted temporary legal and physical custody of the children; (5) the defendant be directed to turn his weapons over to the police or sheriff, until further order of the court; and (6) the defendant be directed to refrain from contacting friends and co-workers of the plaintiff.

A hearing was held before the Hon. Maurino J. Rossanese, Jr. on October 29, 1992. Pertinent to this appeal, the appellee was not limited by the court to describing the September 9th incident described in her petition. Rather, the court allowed the appellee over the appellant's objection to describe two prior recent incidents which she had with the appellant, the appellee having asked "to demonstrate that [the incidents] have been escalating and where we've come and where we're going."

In testifying about the progressively worse incidents of abuse, the appellee testified that the following three incidents occurred. Appellee claimed that on June 20, 1992, her husband had attempted to prevent her from going to a dinner for a co-worker who was leaving the company. The appellant called her names, followed her around and screamed in her face all day, and stole her car keys. On August 2, 1992, the appellee testified that when she came home from work, her husband was waiting for her behind the door. Her husband attempted to grab her purse and her keys. When the appellee entered her car to leave, the appellant came after her and dragged her out, after which he finally let her go. Finally, on September 9th, the wife testified that the husband restrained her in a bathroom while screaming at her. She stated that he would later grab her and throw her down on a couch and strangle her. Still later the appellant allegedly picked the appellee up and tossed her down onto the kitchen floor. He threatened to have sex with her against her will. The appellant claimed to have bruises on her arms and legs after the incident. Throughout this incident the appellant allegedly was screaming at the wife, and at one point followed her into the children's bedroom while they were sleeping.

The appellee testified that she did not immediately report the September 9th incident to the police. The appellee was eventually able to convince her husband to leave home, partly by threatening to get a restraining order against him, while the appellee stayed at the marital residence. However, when the appellee left to go on a two-week business trip in early October (after leaving the children with her parents), the appellant re-entered the marital residence and looked through her personal things. He also tried to regain custody of his children from the appellee's parents. When the wife returned to the marital residence after her trip, the husband refused to leave, claiming that the house was as much his as it was hers. The appellee then filed a Protection From Abuse Petition the next day.

The appellant testified that these incidents usually occurred after appellant had been drinking, and that he had a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality when he consumed alcohol. She specifically testified that the last two incidents occurred while the appellant was under the influence.

Two witnesses corroborated parts of appellee's story. The appellee's pastor, Rev. John Raymond Centrella, recounted that on August 2nd, the appellee appeared distressed at a picnic his church was holding. He related that appellee came to the picnic crying and that, when asked what was wrong, she told him that her Husband had pushed and shoved her around. He testified that she had bruises on her arm. Appellee's mother also testified that following the August 2nd and September 9th incidents her daughter was bruised and told her about the fights between her and the appellant.

The appellant, when he testified, did not deny that incidents occurred. He stated that the June 20th incident simply involved name calling on his part and no physical abuse. He admitted that during the August 2nd incident he restrained the appellee for a period of ten-fifteen minutes by grabbing her arms. Finally, during the September 9th incident, he related that pushing and shoving on both sides went on, and that he had restrained his wife like he had done at the August 2nd incident. He confessed also to being drunk at the September 9th incident, and that he had a drinking problem.

After hearing all the evidence and listening to closing arguments, the trial court issued an Order which, inter alia, prohibited the appellant from returning to the marital residence for a period of six months. ¹ The Court rejected the appellant's argument that the incidents sub judice were not of sufficient gravity to fall within the confines of the Protection From Abuse Act. The court decreed that the escalating nature of the couple's fights, plus the two incidents where physical contact occurred, made this a case falling within the Protection From Abuse Act's proscriptions. It is from the court's Order that this appeal arises.

The appellant raises three issues on appeal: (1) whether the lower court erred in admitting, over appellant's objection, evidence of abuse incidents not pleaded in her petition; (2) whether the court erred in finding that the evidence presented was sufficient to establish that abuse occurred as defined by the Protection From Abuse Act; and (3) whether the court erred in directing as a remedy the exclusion of the husband from the jointly owned marital residence where less burdensome alternative remedies existed.

The first issue raised by appellant is whether the lower court erred in admitting, over his objection, evidence of prior abuse incidents not "pleaded" in his wife's Petition. The appellant claims that the examination of prior incidents of abuse is tantamount to recovering on different "causes of action" than the one that appears in the wife's Petition. He notes that only the September 9th incident appears as a "cause of action" in the wife's Petition. The appellant asserts that it is a fundamental principle of law that a defendant should not be called to defend against matters of which he has no notice in the pleadings. Quinlan and Robertson v. Rundle, 273 Pa. 479, 117 A. 208 (1922); Pa. R. Co. v. Pittsburgh, 335 Pa. 449, 6 A.2d 907 (1939); see also Cantwell v. Cantwell, 179 Pa.Super. 452, 115 A.2d 801 (1955).

We are unpersuaded by appellant's analogy comparing incidents of abuse in an Abuse Petition with causes of action in a civil complaint. The Protection From Abuse Act was not, nor was meant to be, a statute penalizing past criminal conduct. Rather, the primary goal of the act is not retrospective punishment but "advance prevention of physical and sexual abuse." Eichenlaub v. Eichenlaub, 340 Pa.Super. 552, 560, 490 A.2d 918, 922 (1985), quoting Commonwealth v. Allen, 506 Pa. 500, 515, 486 A.2d 363, 370 (1984). We have described the Act as a "vanguard measure dealing with the problems of wife and child abuse." Cipolla v. Cipolla, 264 Pa.Super. 53, 55 n. 1, 398 A.2d 1053, 1054 n. 1 (1979). In passing the statute, the legislature recognized that existing legal remedies were inadequate to deal with this horrific problem and that a new way of proceeding would be more efficacious. See D. Flynn, "Domestic Relations--The Protection From Abuse Act--Pa.Stat.Ann. tit. 35, §§ 10181-10190 (Purdon Supp.1977)," 51 Temple L.Q. 116, 116-20 (1978); Comment, "Spouse Abuse: A Novel Remedy for a Historic Problem," 84 Dickinson L.Rev. 147, 153-5 (1980); Note, "Relief for Victim of Intra-Family Assaults: The Pennsylvania Protection From Abuse Act," 81 Dickinson L.Rev. 815 (1977).

We believe that the statute does not anticipate that a person filing a Petition will be rigorously limited to the specific allegations of abuse found in that Petition. The statute provides simply that in commencing a proceeding under the Act, a Petition must be filed with a court alleging abuse by a defendant:

§ 6106. Commencement of proceedings

(a) General rule.--An adult or an emancipated minor may seek relief under this chapter for that person or any parent, adult household member or guardian ad litem may seek relief under...