Muller v. Muller

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant filed a bill of complaint in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City against her husband, Charles W. Muller, asking for a divorce a, mensa, and for alimony and counsel fees. The parties were married in October, 1901, and it is alleged that the defendant abandoned the appellant on or about December 26, 1912. The abandonment relied upon took place in Baltimore City where the parties were then living.

The appellee went to New York about December 26, 1912, leaving his wife in Baltimore. He has never returned and has never informed her of his intention to return. He has never requested her to join him in New York, and has never informed her where his place of residence is in that city, nor has she ever known. The husband answered the hill, and denied that he had abandoned his wife and averred “that his residence in New York has been temporary only and for the purpose of obtaining employment.” The appellant took testimony to support the allegations of the bill; but the defendant did not testify or offer any evidence.

The case was set for hearing, and the lower Court, after argument by counsel for the parties, passed a decree dismissing the bill, and from this decree the wife has appealed. The testimony in the record does not present the husband to the favorable consideration of the Court. He appears to have been a person of a sullen and disagreeable disposition, and that he frequently used abusive language towards his wife, and his conduct towards her was characterized by the ⁷⁴ utmost coldness and indifference. The evidence shows that when he left his wife he had lost all affection for her, and for . a long time prior to his going away he had shown her no- consideration or attention whatever.

For about five years before leaving he had declined to pay any of his wife’s bills, and gave her only about fifty dollars a year for her clothing and other necessaries. For three or four years prior to his leaving, he and his wife had lived with Mr. and Mrs. A. War-field Monroe,—his wife’s parents,—who appear to be people of very moderate circumstances. Luring all that time he contributed nothing to his own or his wife’s support, although he well knew that it was a great burden upon his wife’s parents to support himself and wife. They had appealed to him to assist in defraying the household expenses, which he had failed to do, assigning as a reason that he had no money, although it had been his practice to go to New York during Christmas time to enjoy the festivities there.

In Fovember before he left, he received in cash about four thousand dollars from some real estate which he sold. He packed his trunk and took practically all his clothing of any value, and left without saying good-bye to his wife, or telling any one when he would return. Mrs. Monroe in giving an account of the circumstances under which he left home, said, that he “had on all new clothes from his hat to his shoes, and a new overcoat, and he had his grip and a suit case and his umbrella and cane that had been fixed up for him and he had sent his trunk away. Fow I do not know what was in that trunk.

He packed it himself that time; before that he always had me to pack it. but this time he packed it himself, and I do not know what was in it. When, he left he came out and said good-bye to Mr. Monroe and he kissed me and said good-bye, and I said. 'Charles, I hope you have a pleasant trip,’ and he looked at ine and walked out and did not say a word to Mrs. Muller —Fellie, his wife, who stood right there in the hall. I sáw that. Q. Did he see his wife?

A. Yes. He was sitting ⁷⁵ there talking with his friend and the gentleman—the one that was there, he said ‘Come and help me to the cars/ and he went off and helped him on the car; that was the last. Q. Did he say when he was coming back ? A. Ro.” In her cross-examination Mrs. Munroe said, that “his actions showed that he did not intend to come back,” and that her daughter’s situation had become embarrassing.

There is other evidence of the same import and effect. John T. Elliott testified that the defendant had a conversation with him just prior to leaving for New York, in which he read a portion of a letter from a woman whom the witness named. In this letter she upbraided him “for being so dilatory about getting a divorce from his wife and instances were cited—one instance was cited by her where a party under similar conditions got a divorce without