Darner v. Darner

Digges,-J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The single question in this case is the sufficiency of the allegation of the bill. This question is presented by the action of the lower court in overruling the defendant’s demurrer to- the bill. The bill was filed by the appellee against her husband, the appellant, p-raying for a divorce a vinculo ⁹⁸ matrimonii and alimony.

The first paragraph of the bill alleges that the parties were married on the 2nd day of October, 1892. The third paragraph is as follows: “That the said Calvin E. Darner (the appellant) on divers days and times since the said marriage, to wit: between the 1st day of January, A. D. 1922, and the filing of this bill of complaint has committed the crime of adultery with one Mabel J. Meadows: in Washington County, Maryland, and with divers other lewd and abandoned women in said county, whose names are to your oratrix unknown.” The position taken by the appellant is that this allegation is not so specific and definite as would require him to' answer, his contention being that the bill should set forth the place where and the approximate date upon which the alleged adultery occurred. There is no statutory form of pleading in such a case. Section 37 of article 16 of the Code simply provides that upon a hearing of any bill for divorce, the court may decree a divorce a vinculo matrimonii for certain causes, among which is adultery.

In Etheridge v. Etheridge, 120 Md. 11 , this court said, in reference to bills for divorce: “The pleader has never been required to set out the facts and circumstances which constitute the evidence of the causes of the divorce alleged; but the bill which charged the enumerated grounds of divorce in the language of the statute; has been uniformly regarded to' be sufficient. This the bill before us does, and, unless we are to wholly depart from the established practice as to the forms of bills for divorce, the order of the lower court must be affirmed. There is great force in the reasoning of many of the cases which hold that the facts and circumstances evidencing the