Rosenthal v. Rosenthal

Delaplaine, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Dorothy L. Rosenthal has appealed here from a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City refusing to grant her a divorce a mensa et thoro from her husband, Daniel Herman Rosenthal. The parties were married in Baltimore in June, 1945. The bride was 18, the groom 31.

They have one son, who was born in 1947. Appellant testified that she pleaded with her husband to provide a house or apartment, and although he was making a large salary he refused to do so, and she was forced to live for nearly five years in her mother-in-law’s home on South Pulaski Street. She swore that he was cruel to her and she was frightened. In February, 1950, when she was nervous and had a high fever, she went to the home of her mother.

As there was very little room in her mother’s home, she left there a few weeks later and instituted suit for divorce. The Court granted her temporary alimony. Several months later appellee and his rabbi urged appellant to return, and she agreed to resume marital relations upon appellee’s promise that he would get an apartment. She explained to the Court: “I had a child to consider, and I wanted him to have a father, and I thought if I got an apartment maybe Mr. Rosenthal would appreciate me in a home and his attitude would change * * *.” Accordingly in June, 1950, she moved with her child into an apartment which her husband had rented on Bancroft Road.

She declared, however, ³⁷⁸ that he was more, abusive after the reconciliation than before. She testified: “Well, my husband tormented me constantly with the thought I made him move. * * * If I did something he did not like he would take up his fist to hit me, and constantly threatened me that he would throw me out and beat me up and disfigure' me. It was always a constant threat. I was always very frightened of my husband.

He intimidated me.” Appellant recalled specifically an assault which her husband committed upon her one evening in the summer of 1951, when she told him that was going to visit her mother. She testified that he slapped her and' threw her down the steps. When she arrived at her mother’s home she was hysterical and sick. Appellant also told of an assault committed upon her one Sunday in the fall of 1951.

She said that while she was in the bathroom, her husband dashed in, threw her against the wall, twisted and bruised her left- arm, and pulled her diamond ring off her finger. Several hours later, after he had left the house, she notified the Northern Police Station. Appellee flatly denied that he had any altercation whatever with his wife on that day. He asserted that she gave him the ring voluntarily and asked him to sell it for her.

He claimed that he sold the ring for $350 and borrowed $800 from his sister, and then made an initial payment of' $1,000 on a contract to purchase a house; that the contract was canceled and his deposit of $1,000 was returned to him; and that he returned the $800 to his sister, and gave $250 to his wife as a birthday present with which to buy two coats and to take a trip with her mother‘to New York. Appellant, branding his story as a fabrication, produced the police officer who came to the apartment to investigate the complaint. The officer testified that when he arrived he found her highly nervous and that she showed him a bruise on her arm. He definitely recalled lhat she told him she had a “struggle and tussle” with her husband and that he had forcibly pulled her diamond ring from her finger. ³⁷⁹ Appellant declared that after enduring torture for nearly five years in her mother-in-law’s home and for one year and a half in the apartment, she could not endure it any longer.

In fact, she said, she had endured it longer than she should have done, as the emotional strain over such a long period of time had injured her health; but she had no money and no place to go, and she had to consider the problem of a home for herself and her child. Finally, in February, 1952, in desperation she called her sister, Mrs. Melvin Kurland, for help. Mrs. Kurland and her husband went immediately to the apartment, found her in a very nervous condition, and offered to let her stay in their home until she could compose herself. Several days later she moved with her child into her sister’s home.

The principal object of the statutory requirement that there must be corroboration of the testimony of an applicant for a divorce, Code 1951, art. 35, sec. 4, is to prevent collusion, and in genuinely contested cases the corroboration need be but slight. Gold v. Gold, 191 Md. 533 , 62 A. 2d 540 ; Maranto v. Maranto, 192 Md. 214 , 64 A. 2d 144 . In this case there was clearly no collusion. The corroboration of appellant’s testimony was abundant.

Dr. Jonas Cohen, appellant’s physician, testified that she told him that her husband had treated her harshly. He testified that she told him that his sexual demands upon her were abnormal; that after he quarreled with her, he demanded sexual intercourse. He testified that she told him that her husband raged at her whenever she planned to leave the house to visit relatives or friends. He gave his opinion as an expert that her extreme nervousness was the result of marital conditions, and that her health had been so seriously affected that she