Geisey v. Geisey

Collins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Frances B. Geisey, the appellant, and James M. Geisey, the appellee, were married in Baltimore City on the 3rd day of August, 1943. On October 28, 1944, the appellant filed a bill of complaint against the appellee for a divorce a mensa et thoro, alimony pendente lite, and permanent alimony. The appellee filed an answer to this bill on November 13, 1944.

On February 6, 1947, the appellee filed a crossrbill alleging that the appellant had abandoned ⁶²¹ and deserted him on May 25, 1944, and asked for a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. Appellant filed an answer denying the allegations of her husband’s bill. After testimony taken in open court which brought out the facts hereinafter recited, the chancellor signed a decree granting the appellee, James M. Geisey, a divorce a vinculo matrimonii, dismissing the bill of complaint of the appellant against the appellee, awarding counsel fee to be paid by the appellee, and ordering that the appellee pay the costs of the suit. From that decree the appellant appeals.

At the time of the marriage of the parties, she was twenty-seven years of age and he was forty-seven. Both had been previously married. At the time of appellant’s marriage to appellee, she had a child then about five years of age by her former husband. No children have been born to the appellee and the appellant.

The parties had known each other for about twelve years before their marriage. The son by her previous marriage, by agreement of the parties, lived with her mother, the child’s maternal grandmother, Mrs. Cora Hammerbacker, first at 3815 Chatham Road in Baltimore. The appellee later purchased a house at 103 West 29th Street where his wife’s mother had an apartment, with the understanding that his wife’s child was to live there. After a wedding trip to New York the parties to this suit moved to an apartment over the appellee’s place of business on Exeter Street in Baltimore.

This apartment was well furnished and comfortable. At the time of the marriage the appellant was in good health and weighed about 128 pounds. The appellee, Mr. Geisey, was engaged in the vending machine business which kept him up until two or three o’clock in the morning. He usually slept until mid-afternoon.

He gave his wife $30 per week, out of which, at his insistence, she paid her mother $10 a week for maintaining her child. The husband purchased all of her clothes and paid for most of the groceries and food used in the home. However, he put unusual restrictions on his wife. Before her marriage to the appellee, the ⁶²² appellant told him voluntarily that after she obtained a divorce from her first husband she had become pregnant by another man, but no child was born.

She said she thought she should tell him of this unfortunate occurrence. ■ Appellee did not want her friends to come to the house to see her. She was not allowed to go to the grocery or to 'do the family marketing. She was not permitted to go to the motion picture theatres, because he said he never knew who would come in and sit next to her. .If she desired to go shopping in a department store he objected. When she was allowed to go she was required to return within a certain length of time.

If she was late in returning he would use harsh words toward her. Once a week on Thursday evening she and her husband went to Maxim’s Restaurant for dinner. He compelled his wife to sit facing the wall or the kitchen, because he had an idea that his wife’s mind wandered and she was “not wholly with him”. Her husband stated that the reason he put these restrictions on his wife was because “she is the.type of person if she takes a few drinks she is putty in your hands, if you want to know the truth”. ..He stated on one occasion when he had a place for ball And pin games on York Road, he went there to make a,:;coll.ection with his wife and another man.

After his collections weré made they had a few drinks and finally his.¿wife, put her feet on the table. She explained this oceurrence by saying that she was sitting down at the time .-and'her foot itched and she removed her shoe and rested it on the chair and scratched her foot, but did not.put her foot on the table. Mr. Geisey ordered the drinks .on that occasion. The appellant’s sister and sister-in-law were in the entertainment business and the husband objected to his wife associating with them.

She stated that the only times she had been in a night club during their married life was when the appellee took her to one in New York on. .their honeymoon. After four months of married life she lost about twenty pounds and was extremely nervous. ⁶²³ A doctor, who treated her at that time, testified that she was slightly anemic and in a highly nervous condition. He advised her to get out in the air and sunshine. The appellee stated that in December, 1943, when Mrs. Geisey’s mother was moving into the 29th Street property, appellant had a cold but wanted to go and help her mother move.

He objected to this and he said that she went into a rage and said to him that his “light was out”. When asked what she meant she pointed to a light on the wall and said that when the bulb was out it was finished between them. She then left to help her mother move although he suggested she hire someone to do this. One afternoon in January, 1944, she went to visit her mother and found that her sister-in-law and mother had been invited by a friend to dinner.

They asked the appellant to go with them. She tried to call her husband at his office but was unable to locate him. She accompanied her mother, her son and her sister-in-law to the dinner in a private home. In the party were the appellant, her sister-in-law, her mother, her son, two girl friends, and the hostess.

Mr. Geisey said he called her at her mother’s home about six o’clock to tell her he was' coming for her but no one answered the telephone. He said he tried to call her again in forty-five minutes, but received no response. He became alarmed, went to the house and found it in darkness. She returned to her mother’s home about 7:30 P.M. and called her husband.

He wanted to know where she had been. She told him that she had made several attempts to locate him but could not find him. He became angry and censured her for going out without his permission because the sister-in-law and the sister-in-law’s sister were entertainers in night clubs. He said: “Well, you have done what you want to do, and now I am going to do what I want to do.” He told her to see her lawyer in the morning.

She remained at her mother’s home for eleven days. At the end of that time a reconciliation was effected and she returned to her husband on Exeter Street. She claims at the time that reconciliation was made the ap ⁶²⁴ pellee’s lawyer said he thought the husband had been rather harsh with her. She said that her husband promised that if she came back she could have her friends come to see her, and she would be allowed to go shopping and to the grocery store and lead a normal life.

Relying on these promises she returned but conditions were very little better. He said at that time he told his wife that he did not want her to go to night clubs and places of public entertainment without him. He continued to take her out once a week to the restaurant, but insisted that she sit facing the wall or the kitchen. Appellant’s brother had just come back from overseas.

On his birthday, May 24, 1944, his mother decided to have a- small dinner party for him. He had been out of the country for nineteen months. She invited the appellee and the appellant to the party. This was on a Thursday when the appellant and the appellee usually went out to dinner together.

The appellee said that he could not “make it”. He said that he did not want to go because it would be too crowded at her house. When told that the party was to be at a restaurant, he declined because he said he was busy. He told his wife that she could do as she wanted about it.

On the night of the party Mr. Geisey drove her to the restaurant. Due to the delay of the appellee in getting out of bed, they arrived twenty minutes late and after the dinner had started. He did not go in but told her after the dinner was over to go either to her mother’s house or come home. After the party was over her brother suggested that the appellant, their mother, and himself go to the Belvedere Hotel and have a bottle of champagne.

The appellant insisted that he call her husband first. He called the husband who said that if the appellant went it would be without his permission. The three then went to the mother’s home about 9:30 P.M., where the brother was staying during his furlough. When they arrived there the telephone was ringing and Geisey wanted to know whether his wife was ready to go home.

She stated that it was still early and she would like to stay a little ⁶²⁵ longer. He said he would get in touch with her later. Her husband did not call her until about two or two-thirty in the morning, when he asked her if she was ready to go home. She replied that she had been ready for some time and wondered why he had not called her.

He said: “You still do not sound like you’re ready to come home.” He then said that he had about three-quarters of an hour’s work to do and he would come for her after he finished his work. She then told him she was not going home and was going to stay there. She testified that she thought that if she waited a few days he would call and promise that conditions would be changed and she would try again and see what she could do. On the following Sunday, the appellant went to her husband’s home in his absence and took away some of her clothing.

Appellee, seeing that she had been there, called her up and volunteered to bring her remaining things to her. This was done a few days later. A week following the separation the appellant, on her own initiative, went to see appellee’s attorney because that attorney had previously told her if she had any more trouble with her husband to come and talk to him and he would see what he could do. On this visit to the husband’s attorney, one week after the separation, he told her that her husband wanted her to return a fur coat, a diamond engagement ring and a diamond sapphire bracelet, which he had given her.

She did not return them. Her husband sent her $30 a week for two weeks after the separation but no more money. In the latter part of July, 1944, he visited the appellant at her mother’s apartment and suggested that they go back and