Ewald v. Ewald

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The first of the three appeals in this case is from a decree annulling the marriage of the plaintiff and defendant on the ground that a former marriage of the defendant had not been validly dissolved. The second and third appeals are from an order denying the first husband’s petition that he be made a party, and that the annulment decree be rescinded for the purpose of permitting argument on his behalf against such an adjudication, in view of the fact that he had subsequently married in reliance upon the validity of the decree of divorce which purported to terminate his marital union with the defendant, but which was held in this suit to be void. In the pending case the plaintiff is John C. Ewald, Jr., whose marriage to the defendant, Ida E. Lease, former wife of Oran C. Lease, the intervening petitioner, occurred in 1926.

The annulment suit was instituted in 1932, after ⁵⁹⁶ the plaintiff had brought and abandoned a divorce suit against the defendant upon allegations of misconduct which appear to have been unfounded. The divorce which the lower court considered invalid was decreed in 1922. In 1929 Lease’s second marriage was contracted, and he has a daughter born of that union. The purpose of his attempted intervention was to defend the legitimacy of his daughter and the character of her mother, who is deceased.

The suit by the present defendant for a divorce from Lease, her first husband, was brought in December, 1921. It was alleged in her bill of complaint that she was residing at North Beach, Calvert County, Md., and that her husband, when last heard of, was in the State of New York; that she had lived with him in the cities of Washington and Baltimore from the date of their marriage on September 5th, 1916, until June 11th, 1918; that her husband, without any just cause, had abandoned and deserted her; and that such abandonment had continued uninterrupted for at least three years, was deliberate and final, and was beyond any reasonable expectation of reconciliation. An order of publication was duly issued, and a decree pro confesso was later passed in due course. The case then proceeded to a decree upon evidence consisting of the testimony of the plaintiff and two other witnesses, from which it appeared that the parties were married in Rockville, Md., and that their separation occurred in Juñe, 1918, in Baltimore, where they had been living for six months; that the defendant left the plaintiff without just reason and enlisted in the navy, and thereafter ignored their marital relationship; that the plaintiff at the time of the separation went to live with her parents, who have had a home at North Chesapeake Beach, Calvert County, since early in 1920, where she has since lived, except that during the winter she boarded in Washington, where she was employed, and went to the Chesapeake Beach home at the week-ends; and that the defendant, when the plaintiff last heard from him, was in Philadelphia.

Upon this testimony the Circuit Court for Calvert ⁵⁹⁷ County, on December 6th, 1922, passed a decree of absolute divorce. The validity of that decree was successfully attacked in this suit upon the basis of testimony which was regarded by the chancellor as proving that Mrs. Lease was not a resident of Maryland when she filed her bill for divorce, and that the court was consequently without jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding. It was proved that Mrs. Lease’s father owned a home in Washington as well as the house at North Chesapeake Beach, and that she lived with her parents in the