Welch v. Welch
| Decision Date | 10 October 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 18712,18712 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | Flora McKinney WELCH, Respondent, v. George H. WELCH, Appellant. |
William L. Thompson, S. Eugene Haley, J. Alex Neeley, Jr., Anderson, Walter J. Bristow, Jr., Columbia, for appellant.
Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann, Greenville, for respondent.
This action for separate support and maintenance was brought by the wife in the Court of Common Pleas for Anderson County and was referred to a member of the Anderson Bar as special referee. The referee found in favor of the wife on all issues and recommended that the husband be required to pay $750.00 per month for her support. The circuit court affirmed the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the referee and adopted the report as the judgment of the court. The husband has appealed on exceptions which primarily challenge the conclusion of the court that the wife is entitled to separate maintenance and support. The exceptions also assign as error the refusal of the husband's motions that the court, before passing upon the exceptions to the report, recommit the action for the purpose of taking additional testimony.
The parties to this action, George H. Welch and Flora McKinney Welch, were married in 1927. She was sixteen years of age, and he was four years older. They had no money except what George, with some assistance from his wife during the early years, cound earn. He was industrious, intelligent and successful in business. For some years prior to the wife's departure from the marital abode in June, 1965, the couple had lived in affluence in a fine home in Anderson, South Carolina. Their two older children enjoyed the advantages of undergraduate and professional education, European travel, etc. George, Jr., graduated in medicine from Duke University. He is a successful surgeon in St Petersburg, Florida. The only daughter graduated from Converse College. She has had rather broad experience in the field of education and now lives in West Palm Beach Florida, with per husband who is a physician specializing in internal medicine. The youngest child was killed in an automobile accident in 1964. He was an outstanding sixteen-year-old boy and was by far his father's favorite, if not the sole object of his affection.
The lengthy record furnishes little insight into the early relationship between husband and wife. However, it abundantly attests that such conjugal feeling and co-operation as existed between them had, for some years before the commencement of this action, been supplanted by antipathy, bordering on malevolence, and by appalling marital discord. The record engenders no hope of a reconciliation. The husband's profession that he did not wish his wife to leave and that his home is open for her return is a mere pretense. This is demonstrated by even a casual reading of his own testimony. So far as man may judge, the alienation of the parties is complete, and a resumption of cohabitation would be intolerable. Under the circumstances of this case, the fact that it was the wife who left the husband is entitled to little, if any, weight. She is entitled to separate maintenance and support unless she was guilty of disqualifying fault in bringing about or causing the disruption of the marital relation, which her physical departure from the home merely signified.
As to what constitutes fault which will bar a wife from separate maintenance and support this court in Miller v. Miller, 225 S.C. 274, 82 S.E.2d 119, recognized that most marital difficulties are to some extent the fault of both parties and approved the rule that the wife need not be blameless in order to recover. Relief should be denied to her on this ground only if she was guilty of substantial fault or misconduct "which materially contributed to the disruption of the marital relation or induced the action by the husband upon which she relies to justify their separation, * * *." 225 S.C. at 280, 82 S.E.2d at 122; 3 Nelson, Divorce and Annulment, Sec. 32.21 (2d ed. 1945).
Some twenty-nine witnesses were examined before the special referee. The hearings consumed approximately three and one-half days. As is usual in such cases, the witnesses for the respective parties tended to be partisan, and their testimony was frequently in sharp conflict on important points. Each of the parties sought to fasten the entire blame upon the other, and their testimony is in irreconcilable conflict in most respects.
The special referee, who had the advantage of hearing the parties and witnesses testify and of observing their demeanor on the stand, resolved the material issues of fact in favor of the wife, in partial summary, as follows:
The husband has a violent temper and, without cause, he frequently became enraged at his wife. When so enraged, he cursed and verbally abused her without restraint, sometimes in the presence of others.
On at least two occasions, the husband, in venting his anger upon his wife, caused injuries to her person which were evidenced by severe bruises.
On a number of occasions, sometimes while brandishing a pistol, the husband threatened to kill his wife.
The husband's violent temper and abuse of his wife and his threats toward her have engendered in her a reasonable and well-founded fear of him. His abusiveness, threats and displays of anger increased after the death of his favorite child, and the wife's fear of him was augmented.
The wife left the home on June 9, 1965, because of the husband's abusive treatment and threats, and because she feared for her life. She was justified in this fear and in leaving the home.
The husband's charge that the wife drank alcoholic beverages to excess has not been established by the testimony. She only takes an occasional social drink and is a refined, well-behaved woman of excellent character who has done her best to be a good wife and mother.
The conditions which existed in this home due to the fault of the husband made continued cohabitation of the parties intolerable, and the wife was justified in leaving.
The foregoing findings of fact were affirmed and adopted by the circuit judge who heard exceptions to the report of the referee. Under the well-settled rule, for which no authority need be cited, they will not be disturbed on...
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