Crouch v. Crouch

Walsh, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On April 16, 1925, Edna F'. Crouch, the appellee, filed her bill of complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County asking for a divorce a mensa, el thoro from her hus ⁶¹⁰ band, Harry M. Oroticb, the appellant, on the ground of cruelty. Harry M. Crouch answered denying the charges of cruelty, and later filed a cross-hill ashing for a partial divorce on the ground of desertion.

The plaintiff in the original bill filed an answer' to the cross-bill denying that sho had deserted her husband and alleging that she had been compelled to leave him because of his cruelty. The issues thus presented by the parties were tried in open court, and after a full hearing the learned chancellor granted Edna E. Crouch a divorce a mensa* ek thoro, with alimony of fifteen dollars per week, and dismissed the cross-bill, and from this action Harry M. Crouch has appealed. The parties were married in Baltimore City in 1915, and resided there until 1917, when the appellant purchased a house and about four acres of ground near Towson, and thereafter they lived there, though the husband continued to go to Baltimore every day to engage in his business, which was that of an automobile salesman. In 1921 the appellant’s brother, Samuel O. Crouch, who was a painter by trade and who had spent most of his life on the Eastern Shore, became subject to hallucinations, and the appellant and one of his sisters, Mrs. Eorsythe, brought him to Baltimore, where he resided with the latter.

He frequently visited the appellant’s home at Towson over weekends, -and on one of these occasions he greatly frightened the appellee by getting! a shot gun and telling her there was some one after him. The appellee intimates in her testimony that he pointed the gun at her, but whether he did this or not, it is undisputed that he had the gun, that he was laboring under the delusion that some one in or around the house was after him, and that the appellee called the appellant from Baltimore to come out and look after his brother. As a result of this incident, and perhaps others of a less dangerous nature, the appellant and his sisters, after consulting a physician, had Samuel 0. Crouch placed in the Sheppard-Pratt Hospital in' September, 1921, and he remained there until ⁶¹¹ May, 1922, at which time he was discharged in the care of his brother and sisters.

At this time he had largely recovered from the haliucina,tions he had been having, and up to the time of the bringing of this suit there had been no recurrence of these delusions, nor had he given any evidence of being dangerous. According to the medical testimony in the record, it appears that he was mentally sub-normal, and that if placed under any sudden mental strain, or in any unusual situation, he might be unable to control bimself, and the delusions might return in a form which would render him dangerous. At the time he entered the Sheppard-Pratt Hospital in 3921 he had what Is known as dementia praecox, and during the early part of his stay at the hospital he had attacked one of the attendants, but when he was released from the hospital he had apparently overcome this difficulty, though, as we said above, the doctors testified that this condition might return. Upon first leaving the hospital, Samuel Crouch lived in Baltimore with his sister, Mrs. Forsythe, and occasionally visited his brother, the appellant.

Later he was taken back to the Eastern Shore and boarded at two different places there for several years, returning to Mrs. Forsythe’s residence in June, .1924. In December, 1924, disliking Baltimore City and being accustomed to life in the country, he moved, of his own accord, to the appellant’s residence, and is still there. Mrs. Crouch states that- after he went to the Sheppard-Pratt Hospital she was very much afraid of him, and it is conceded in the evidence that, after1 he came to the appellant’s home in December, 1924, she told the appellant on a number of occasions that she did not want him to stay there, and that she insisted upon his being taken somewhere else, and Mrs. Crouch testified that it was because of her husband’s refusal to remove Ms brother from their home that she left him in April, 1925. The appellant admits that Mrs. Crouch wanted the brother removed, but he denies that he ever refused to have him removed, and states that he was making ⁶¹² arrangements to have him go to Cleveland and live with his niece, and that Mrs. Crouch knew that these arrangements were being made.

The appellant’s testimony regarding his efforts to have his brother go to Cleveland is corroborated, but it does not appear just when the niece in Cleveland could have taken the brother, the arrangements for his removal being apparently contingent upon the niece, who then lived in a small apartment, securing a home large enough to accommodate the brother. Mrs. Crouch, on the other hand, denies that she was ever advised that any such arrangements were being made, and states that her1 husband told her that his brother would have to remain in their home. In addition to the charge of cruelty growing out of the presence of the brother, Mrs. Crouch testified to several acts of personal violence on the part of her husband, and brought two other charges which seriously reflected on his character, but we agree with the learned chancellor below that none of these matters were established by the evidence. There is also a great deal of testimony regarding various quarrels and disputes which these parties had during their married life, but a careful reading of the record does not show that one was more to blame than the other for these troubles.

The chancellor indicated quite clearly the impression which all the testimony made upon him, when, in the course of his opinion, he said: “If I followed really what I thought was the substantial equity in this case, I would dismiss both bills, and I would do that except for one element to which I have already referred. I can’t see, taking this case by and large, considering all the testimony, talcing in the whole picture, that either one of these parties has been entirely free from blame. Neither one is perfect and neither one has the right to expect the other will be perfect.” The chancellor, however, concluded that the continued presence of the mentally infirm brother in the husband’s home justified the wife in leaving, and, as both parties testified on the stand that they would not ⁶¹³ live together again, he granted the. wife a divorce a mensa et bhoro. We would have no difficulty in sustaining this decision, were it not for the manner in which the wife left, and the failure of the testimony as st whole to convince us that tlio presence of the brother was the real cause of her leaving, or that it was sufficient to warrant her leaving permanently.

A wife undoubtedly has the right to refuse to live with her husband when he insists on keeping in his home a person who has been a dangerous lunatic, and who, according to the medical testimony, may become dangerous again. Such conduct if persisted in would, in our opinion, constitute cruelty on the part of the husband, if the wife continued to reside in his home despite her fears of the insane person, or it would justify the wife in leaving the husband’s home and render the husband guilty of constructive desertion if he declined to remedy the situation within a reasonable time. “Permitting those under his authority so to conduct themselves toward his wife as seriously to impair her health constitutes cruelty on tire part of the husband entitling the wife to a divorce.” 19 C. J. 47. And it has also been held that “a wife is not guilty of desertion for refusing to follow her husband to a place of abode selected, by him which would impair her health or safety, or comfort, onto' a place among his relatives who are unpleasant to her, and who would interfere with her control of the home, at least if he was able to furnish a. better one.” 19 C. J. 60. And see also 38 A. L. R. 338, note; 13 L. R. A.

(N. S.) 222, note; 9 R. C. L. 365, 366, secs. 151 and 152; and Hoffhines v. Hoffhines, 146 Md. 350 . We havo found no ease in which the precise question presented by the record before us has been decided, but under the general rules above quoted, and on reason, we have no hesitancy in holding that a man cannot require his wife to remain in a home in which his insane brother also resides. In the present case, howevei*, we do not think the wife lias satisfactorily proved that she actually left because of the brother’s presence, and even if this was her reason for leav ⁶¹⁴ ing, we are of the opinion that under the circumstances of this ca'se she is not justified in basing an action for divorce upon it. The evidence shows that in 1923 she left her husband and remained away about a month, not because of the presence of his brother, but because the appellant made his sister treasurer of a corporation he was forming, and the appellee’s own testimony shows that she left him on April 14th, 1925, without any notice, or warning whatever, and later refused to discuss with him her reason for leaving or the. question of her returning.

The record shows that the appellant’s brother came uninvited to his home about the middle of December, 1924, that several weeks later the appellant injured his foot and was compelled to remain at home for about three months, that he resumed his work around the latter part of March, 1925, and that after he did so his wife drove into Baltimore with him each morning and returned in the machine with him each evening. The wife contends that she did this because she was afraid to remain at home with the appellant’s brother, while the husband says she did it because she had tired of country life and preferred to spend the days in Baltimore ’City at her parents’ home. On the morning of April 14th, 1925, she went in town with him as usual, left his car without in any way indicating that she would not return with him that evening, and then went to her father’s