Andrews v. Andrews

Oppenheimer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue raised by the appellant-mother in this custody case is whether the Chancellor improperly excluded expert opinion testimony of two psychiatrists based on a hypothetical question, but beneath the legal point involved there are the labyrinths of the mother’s motivations and the sexual interests of the father. The parties were married in Montgomery County in 1952. They had two children, both boys, who at the time of the hearing below were 12 and 10.

The husband (the appellee and cross-appellant), Dr. E. Wyllys Andrews, had two sons by a previous marriage. In 1956, the couple moved from Montgomery County to Merida, Mexico. Dr. Andrews is a distinguished anthropologist. During the war, he was a lieutenant in the Navy office of strategic services, and, since 1956, he has been working on excavations in Yucatan for Tulane University.

The parties separated in 1960; Dr. Andrews remained in Yucatan with the children, and Mrs. Andrews went to Vienna and then to Washington. They were divorced on July 17, 1962, by a decree of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, in an uncontested action brought by Mrs. Andrews based on voluntary separation. On May 8, 1962, the parties had entered into a separation agreement. Under that instrument, Mrs. Andrews received land in Montgomery County, worth about $150,000, and $18,750 which was paid in installments.

The instrument provided that custody of the children should remain in the father, with rights to the mother to visit them and have them visit with her at reasonable times. Each of the parties was represented by counsel in the preparation of the document. At the divorce hearing before the master, Mrs. Andrews testified she understood the contents of the agreement and asked the court to approve it. It was incorporated in the divorce decree. ¹⁴⁶ On August 24, 1962, about five weeks after the divorce, Mrs. Andrews, while the children were visiting with her in Montgomery County, filed a petition for modification of the decree in which she asked that she be granted custody and guardianship of the children.

The petition alleged that Dr. Andrews is a person of immoral character and perverted mentality; the principal ground set forth in support of this allegation is that Dr. Andrews, for many years, has collected and maintained a collection of pornographic photographs. The history of this collection is of interest in the litigation, apart from its nature and effect upon Dr. Andrews’ fitness as his children’s custodian. It is undisputed that Mrs. Andrews knew of this collection during the marriage. When she signed the separation agreement in which she consented to her husband’s custodianship, she had the photographs in her possession.

Without her husband’s knowledge, while he was in Merida, she had the safe in which the collection was kept drilled open by a professional locksmith. The separation agreement provided that the photographs, with other personal property of Dr. Andrews, were to be returned to him. Mrs. Andrews returned some of the collection, which Dr. Andrews destroyed, but, without his knowledge, kept some of the photographs which she offered as evidence in the custody proceedings. In those proceedings, Mrs. Andrews contended that her legal representation when she entered into the separation agreement was improper and inefficient.

(At the hearing below, she had other counsel). Testimony was taken on this issue, and, in his opinion, Judge Pugh found as a fact that she was ably represented at the time of the execution of the agreement and at all times prior thereto, and that there was no justification for her accusation's. The record amply supports these findings. The Chancellor commented, on this phase of the matter, that Mrs. Andrews is now attempting, after having received all the fruits of the agreement, to use the pictures which she kept in violation of its terms as a weapon to recover the custody of her children, and that she makes no attempt to rescind the agreement by tendering back the real estate and cash which she received under it.

What was in the wife’s mind when she executed the agree ¹⁴⁷ ment, took the real property and cash, retained the photographs, and relinquished custody over the children, and then, within a few weeks after the divorce, used the photographs in an attempt to regain her children, is not a matter for judicial speculation. The compassionate (but not exculpatory) interpretation of her actions is that, lonely and unhappy, after providing for her financial security, she felt, with primeval ruthlessness, that in trying to keep her children with her, no holds were barred. In any event, as the court below pointed out, the controlling issue in a custody case is what is best for the children. The conduct of the mother is only relevant on the question of whether she would be a better custodian than her former husband.

It is only on the issue of which parent should be given custody, from the point of view of what seems best for the children, that the father’s interest in pornographic photography is relevant. It is not within the functions or competence of courts to pass judgment upon a man’s private tastes or hobbies unless these interests are transmuted into character, and then only to the extent that they influence, or are apt to' influence, the legal relationships with which the law must deal. Mrs. Andrews contends that her former husband’s pornographic collection is evidence of a deep-seated sexual neurosis and shows his mental and psychological unfitness for custody. While Mrs. Andrews’’ appeal is based on the lower court’s exclusion of opinion testimony as to her former husband’s alleged unfitness, a consideration of other portions of the record is necessary for a determination of the propriety of the court’s ruling.

The hearing on the wife’s motion for custody pendente lite took two days, in August 1962. Custody with the father, who was living in Yucatan, was continued until the hearing on the merits, which took place in February 1964. The testimony and exhibits offered in the 1962 hearing were incorporated in the later proceedings. The exhibits included the portion of the photographs and an album of lewd doggerel retained by Mrs. Andrews from her husband’s collection.

They were referred to by him as “juvenile erotica” and are admittedly and indubitably pornographic. No' useful purpose would be served by a more specific description; the collection is “hard-core” pornography by any standard. ¹⁴⁸ Dr. Andrews testified that he is a collector by nature. His collections have included shells, ash-trays, native objects and stamps. The motivations of a collector, he said, “are very hard to put into words.

I was collecting, organizing, putting in albums; each thing would be typical of various aspects of behavior, misbehavior, perversities.” He began his collection of juvenile erotica in the late 1940’s, and continued it to the time he and his wife moved to Mexico in 1956. The collection consisted of a number of albums, containing from 800 to 1200 items similar to those offered in evidence, acquired from “shady “book dealers” and other collectors in the United States and abroad. Dr. Andrews cataloged, indexed and edited the material, and made photographic reproductions and enlargements of .some of it in his dark-room at home. His collecting activity was merely a hobby and not connected with his professional work, .although, in connection with his work, he has had studies published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington dealing with primitive pornography.

His profession is “the study of human fiehavior; continually how people behave with relation to each •other. How they change. What patterns there are in their behavior.” He reviewed his collection from time to time, and found pleasure in occasionally meeting with other collectors to show and discuss the various collections. He did not show the collection except to a few mature people he knew had a special interest in it.

Dr. Andrews discontinued his collection in 1956 or 1957 and has made no similar acquisitions since that time. He left the •collection in the Montgomery County home when he and his wife moved to Mexico; it was from the safe in the home that •the wife later extracted some of it. When his wife returned •some of the items after the execution of the separation agreement, he destroyed them, believing he had destroyed the entire ■collection. He stopped collecting the pornographic material because he no longer “got a kick” out of it; he decided “this was .a sort of stupid thing to collect.” He has no intention of resuming the collecting.

He never showed his collection to his •children, and would not approve of their having possession of such material at any time, even if they were adults. The evidence was strong and uncontradicted (except by his ¹⁴⁹ former wife) that Dr. Andrews is respected, not only as an anthropologist, but as a man. In addition to the testimony to this effect adduced by Dr. Andrews, after the hearing in 1964, the Chancellor, sua sponte and commendably, sent interrogatories to the Reverend Robert L. Russell, an American Catholic priest, in Yucatan. (Both parties are Roman Catholics and their children are being raised in that religion).

Cross-interrogatories were sent by the parties. Reverend Russell deposed that Dr. Andrews is “well respected as far as I know and can say here in Merida. I always have respected the doctor highly.” The testimony as to Dr. Andrews’ relationship with his children, in our opinion, is of particular significance. Dr. Harold Schwartz, who works for the Department of the Army and operates a dairy farm in Emmitsburg, is related to Mrs. Andrews by marriage.

He has known her since 1939, and Dr. Andrews since 1945; he was best man at the marriage, and is god-father of one of the boys. He visited the Montgomery County home frequently and testified Dr. Andrews seemed an average, ordinary father; in Dr. Schwartz’s opinion, Dr. Andrews would be a proper custodian. Dr. Lester Houck, a former archaeologist and professor at the Universities of Michigan and Texas, is now employed by CIA. He visited the home in Montgomery County on many occasions and made two visits to the home in Merida.

In his opinion, Dr. Andrews would be a fit and proper custodian for the children. His relationship with the boys was that of the average father, except that Dr. Andrews, because of his many interests, arouses their curiosity in intellectual matters. Dr. Houck also testified that Dr. Andrews’ children by his first marriage are above average, intelligent, well mannered and behaved; the elder is a student at Harvard. Elizabeth Borst was called as a witness by Mrs. Andrews, who is her sister, to testify about an incident to which reference will hereafter be made.

Miss Borst visited Dr. Andrews in Merida, at his request, in 1960, to endeavor to resolve the marital difficulties. Mrs. Andrews was then in Europe. During cross-examination, Miss Borst identified a letter she had written to Dr. Andrews after she had returned to this country. In that letter, she referred to her sister, Mrs. Andrews, “and her life of selfishness.” She wrote, further, “I also told her of three happy children, ¹⁵⁰ •who seemed unaffected by the departure of their mother.” (the third child was evidently the younger son of Dr..

Andrews’ former marriage). In his opinion, Judge Pugh stated: “There is no evidence in this case that the pornographic pictures or literature were •shown to or seen by the two children. The evidence does show that the- collection of the pornographic pictures was a hobby of •some kind of the defendant-father but that he has since abandoned and ceased to collect or continue this peculiar hobby. The children are happy,'healthy and well cared for with their father.

He has made ample provision for their well being.” There is substantial evidence to support these findings. The incident to which Miss Borst testified was that while she was visiting Dr. Andrews in Mexico, he tried, unsuccessfully, to seduce her. “Nothing improper occurred.” Miss Borst also testified that, in Dr. Andrews’ bedroom, there were several photographs of her, taken when she was 7 to 12 years old, clad in a bathing suit. Miss Borst was 20 at the time of her visit. The physician called by Mrs. Andrews was Dr. Francis Fergus Barnes, of Washington.

He has specialized in the practice of psychiatry since 1949, has had clinical experience in the treatment of