Plum v. Plum

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This divorce case turns entirely on the correctness of the chancellor’s findings of fact. The appellant, Mrs. Plum, filed a bill for divorce a mensa on the ground of desertion by the husband. The appellee, Mr. Plum, filed an answer denying the desertion and a cross-bill which sought a divorce a vinculo on the ground of his wife’s desertion and adultery.

The chancellor found that Mrs. Plum had committed adultery and awarded Mr. Plum a divorce. In her appeal Mrs. Plum contends that there was no clear and convincing evidence of adultery on her part, that there ³⁰⁸ was evidence of Mr. Plum’s adultery which should have barred him from obtaining a divorce, and that the testimony of a corroborating witness should have been rejected because Mr. Plum gave a false address for the witness. We find it clear that the chancellor could have properly been convinced of Mrs. Plum’s adultery. Mr. Plum testified that one January evening through the window of the front room of the home of Mrs. Bussard (Mrs. Plum’s mother), he saw his wife and a suitor named Suter having sexual intercourse on a sofa.

Mrs. Bussard admitted that Mrs. Plum and Mr. Suter were in her house late on the evening in question, but maintained that Mr. Suter had left before she, Mrs. Bussard, had gone to bed. Mr. Plum had had the foresight to procure two eyewitnesses who also saw through the same window as he did the adultery he claimed. One was a young woman in whom he was interested, the other a girl who was