Lombardi v. Lombardi

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a decree awarding a wife permanent alimony of $12 per week and counsel fee of $150, and dismissing the husband’s cross-bill on the ground of desertion. The chancellor filed no opinion, but merely announced his conclusions on the facts. The parties were married in Italy in 1922 and one daughter was born as a result of the marriage during the following year.

In 1924 the appellant came to America. He sent her money from time to time. In 1948, 24 years later, he gave her a somewhat equivocal invitation to come to Baltimore. He wrote that he would not send her any more letters or money if she did no come; that she would have to get along with his sister-in law if she came; “otherwise you can get someone else and I will get someone else.” She borrowed the money (which he afterwards repaid) and came to Baltimore, without the daughter, in December 1948.

According to her testimony her husband beat her and his sister-in-law also beat her and reviled her upon her arrival at 232 East Montgomery Street, and every day she was there. She lived with her husband, except for a visit to her relatives in New York for about two months, until she left on October 1, 1949. ⁴³¹ Her testimony as to the repeated beatings is disputed and not fully corroborated. While several witnesses testified that she sometimes had bruises and once a black eye, no one saw the beatings. The husband and sister-in-law denied that they ever occurred, as did some of the neighbors.

The sister-in-law testified that on one occasion she had fallen down the stairs. A police matron testified she saw bruises on the appellee’s body on one occasion when she had her husband arrested. But it was shown that this hearing was on October 8, 1949, a week after she had left the home. She testified to beatings but told the magistrate she did not want her husband jailed, that she only wanted support.

The case was dismissed. It seems clear that the beatings were not such as to put her in fear of her life. It was testified and not denied, however, that the husband said at that time he did not want her to come back under any conditions. One of her grievances was that the husband did not meet her in New Yirk when she landed, and upbraided her for leaving the daughter in Italy.

The daughter did come to America in 1950, but only stayed with her father for a few days because they did not get along and he refused to discuss reconciliation with the mother. This, of course, was after the separation but long before the