Lickle v. Lickle

Delaplaine, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. William F. Lickle, an insurance agent, of Towson, is appealing here from a decree of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County granting his wife, Margaret Lee Lickle, a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. He contends that the evidence fails to support her charge of adultery. The parties were married in 1917.

They had three children, who are now adults. Appellant, a captain in the First World War, is now over 55. The parties have not cohabited as man and wife for many years, although they resided in the same house. In 1937 appellant met A. Gordon Boone, a young Towson lawyer, and his wife, Edith Flint Boone, the co-respondent in this case.

Appellant frequently visited their home on Bellona Avenue, went to parties with them, and accompanied them to the races. From 1939 to 1946 appellant served by appointment of the Governor as trial magistrate at large for Baltimore County. In July, 1942, Boone received a commission in the United States Navy. After naval training in this country, he served in the Pacific and later in the European theater of operations.

During the years when Boone was in the service, appellant became increasingly intimate with Mrs. Boone. She changed her residence four ⁴⁰⁶ times during that period: to Homeland on November 1, 1942; to Owings Mills on October 1, 1943; to Riderwood on Ma^ 1, 1944; and to' Ruxton on May 1, 1945. But in each of these homes appellant was a frequent visitor. One of Mrs. Boone’s maids testified that he was at the home at Owings Mills “most of the time.” Another maid testified that he visited Mrs. Boone in her homes at Riderwood and Ruxton on numerous occasions, staying all night several times a week, and eating many meals there.

She also testified that appellant and Mrs. Boone often went motoring together, returning late at night. Twice during the summer of 1943 appellant and Mrs. Boone vacationed together at Ocean City, Maryland. The first time was early in June, when they stopped at the Delmar Hotel. On that occasion appellant was accompanied by one of his sons, while Mrs. Boone and her elder son, Gordon, Jr., then ten years old, had rooms across the hall.

The second trip was entirely different. Appellant and Mrs. Boone, traveling together in an automobile, arrived in Ocean City on July 23. They were unaccompanied. Mrs. Boone had sent her ten-year-old son to camp, and had left her one-year-old son at home with a nurse.

Appellant registered at the Ambassador Apartments for both himself and Mrs. Boone, and during the next two weeks they occupied rooms on the third floor of the building. The first night they occupied adjoining rooms with connecting bathroom. After the first night appellant took another room across the hall, but they visited each other’s room frequently, sometimes until after midnight. It further appears that in September, 1944, appellant drove Mrs. Boone and her two boys on a trip to Cumberland, and at the Fort Cumberland Hotel, where they spent the night, appellant registered for the party as “William F. Lickle and family.” Boone testified that he had not had sexual relations with his wife since Septémber, 1943.

In October, 1943, when he was home on . a furlough, she repulsed his advances without any explanation. Three other times— when he returned from Europe in 1944, in June, 1945, ⁴⁰⁷ and in October, 1945—she again refused to have relations with him. He then accused her of being fond of another man, and he suspicioned that it was Lickle. In January, 1945, he was ordered to Chicago to act as instructor in amphibious warfare at Northwestern University.

He pleaded with her to go with him to Chicago, but she refused even to visit him at any time during the year, although Gordon, Jr., came to see him in September. He returned home in October, and received his honorable discharge in December, 1945. Several days after Christmas, Boone confronted Lickle with the charge that he had committed adultery with Mrs. Boone. Lickle denied that there had been any improper conduct.

Boone thereupon asserted that he could not imagine a woman wanting a divorce unless there were another man in the case. Lickle retorted: “Yes, I can imagine that very easily. * * * Time will prove whether your thoughts in this matter are correct or incorrect.” In a suit for divorce the burden of proof is on the complainant, but the charge of adultery as a ground for divorce need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Sterling v. Sterling, 145 Md. 631, 635 , 125 A. 809 . Judge Bobinson stated that no general rule can be laid down as to what facts shall constitute proof of adultery, because the same presumptions do not always follow the same facts, the weight of presumptions depending upon the character, habits and situation of the parties, and the question of guilt or innocence depends upon the facts and circumstances of each particular case.

Kremelberg v. Kremelberg, 52 Md. 553, 555 . However, it is broadly stated that the evidence sufficient to prove the charge of adultery must be so clear, satisfactory and convincing as to lead the unprejudiced mind of a reasonable and prudent man to that conclusion. Swoyer v. Swoyer, 157 Md. 18 , 145 A. 190 ; Bowler v. Bowler, 183 Md. 493 , 39 A. 2d 538 . We have also stated that circumstantial evidence required to prove a charge of adultery in a divorce case must show (1) an opportunity to commit the offense, and (2) a disposition to commit it.

Dougherty v. Dough ⁴⁰⁸ erty, 187 Md. 21 , 48 A. 2d 451 ; Hockman v. Hockman, 187 Md. 340 , 50 A. 2d 136 . In the instant case appellant and the co-respondent had innumerable opportunities to commit adultery. If these opportunities were not afforded at the co-respondent’s home where the two boys and Boone’s 75-year-old father lived, they unquestionably existed on the many automobile trips and at Ocean City. It is appellant’s contention that the evidence fails to show an adulterous disposition.

He claims that he cultivated merely a Platonic friendship, which began about ten years ago. He says that he enjoyed talking with Boone’s father, and that he helped the family in locating new homes and in various other ways while Boone was overseas. In a suit for divorce brought on the ground of adultery, frequent opportunities for adultery with a co-respondent and even acts which are highly indiscreet are not sufficient to establish guilt, in the absence of an adulterous