Rumbel v. Schueler

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Helen Rumbel, the appellant, was awarded an $8,000 verdict by a jury against an uninsured motorist. The Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund refused to pay the judgment on the ground that Mrs. Rumbel was not a qualified person under Code (1957), Art. 66J2, Sec. 150 (g). Mrs. Rumbel sought to compel ²⁷ payment relying solely on one of the tests under the statute— that she was a resident of Maryland at the time of the collision in Baltimore on April 14, 1962.

Judge Foster held that (1) to he a resident within the meaning of Code (1957), Art. 66y, Sec. 150 (g) one has to be a domiciliary in the usual accepted legal sense; (2) with certain exceptions, not here relevant or pertinent, the domicile of a married woman follows, or remains, that of her husband; (3) the domicile of Mr. Rumbel, a career soldier, had always, during the times here pertinent, been in Pennsylvania. On the first point, Maddy v. Jones, 230 Md. 172 , and Walsh, Adm’r v. Crouse, 232 Md. 386 , established “resident” as used in the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Act as the synonym of domiciliary. Whiting v. Shipley, 127 Md. 113, 117 , and Bennett v. Bennet, 197 Md. 408, 412 , held that the general rule is that, in the absence of a decree of separation or divorce (or possibly where the wife has been abandoned or forced by brutal treatment to leave the husband or in pending divorce cases), the legal domicile of a wife is that of her husband and he has the right to choose that domicile. The discussion in Blair v. Blair, 199 Md. 9, as to the right of a working wife who earns more than her husband to choose an independent domicile was not necessary to the decision or the holding in that case and, in any event, the holding there did not purport to overturn the established