Buckheit v. Buckheit

Powers, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal questions the constitutionality of the new ground for divorce established by Chapter 656, Acts of 1969, amending and reenacting Code, Article 16, § 24, and ⁵²⁷ contends that if it is applied at all, it should be prospective only. The parties were married on March 27, 1954, in Baltimore. The husband deserted the wife on October 27, 1962.

They have not lived together since. With that desertion as the ground, the wife filed a suit for alimony, which was awarded. On July 8, 1969, the husband filed a bill of complaint praying for a divorce on the ground that the parties had lived separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for five years, and for division and distribution of all property, real, personal and mixed. Chapter 656, Acts of 1969, added to the grounds for divorce a vinculo matrimonii the following: “seventhly, on the application either party when the husband and wife have lived separate and apart without any cohabitation and without interruption for five years.

A plea of res adjudicata or of recrimination with respect to any other provisions of this section shall not be a bar to either party obtaining a divorce on this seventh ground. When a divorce is granted on this seventh ground, the court, in the absence of a bona fide property division agreement between the parties, which it may exercise on the application of either party, may divide, and distribute between the parties, all their property, real, personal or mixed, over which the court has jurisdiction. The amount and proportion of the property to be divided and distributed shall be in the sound discretion of the court as just and equitable considering all the circumstances of the case.” By its terms, the new law was effective July 1,1969. The wife demurred, contending that the law was unconstitutional.

The Chancellor held that portion of the law relating to division of property to be unconstitutional and that portion which established the ground for divorce ⁵²⁸ both constitutional and severable, as well as retrospective, and sustained the demurrer with leave to amend. The amended complaint prayed only that relief as to property which has been available under Code, Article 16, § 29. The wife again demurred, along with her answer, the demurrer was overruled, the case heard on the merits, a decree divorcing the husband a vinculo matrimonii from the wife was entered on April 6, 1970, and she appealed. The record in the wife’s separate suit for alimony was consolidated below and both were transmitted to this court.

CONSTITUTIONALITY Constitutionality of the law was ably argued by counsel for both parties in their memoranda supporting and opposing the demurrer below. In a thorough and well reasoned memorandum opinion the Chancellor held that portion of the law relating to division of property unconstitutional because it was not described in the title of the law, but held the rest severable, constitutional, and retrospective in its effect. The title of the act, identified as House Bill 379 originally was: AN ACT to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Section 24 of Article 16 of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1966 Replacement Volume), title “Chancery,” subtitle “Divorce and Annulment,” to provide additional grounds for divorce of three (3) years’ separation, without cohabitation, and without interruption by the parties, and to exclude the plea of res ad judicata or of recrimination as a bar to either party obtaining a divorce on this ground. As the bill was introduced, this title adequately described the one subject embraced by it.- When the body of the bill was amended to change the specified time period from three to five years, the title was likewise amended.

When the part relating to division of property was added to the body of