Schenker v. Schenker

PER Curiam. This divorce case originated with the wife’s filing a bill for divorce on the ground of abandonment. The husband filed a cross-bill on the same ground. Thereafter the husband filed a supplemental cross-bill charging both abandonment and adultery.

The wife countered with a supplemental bill making similar charges against the husband. Each party filed an answer to the original and supplemental cross-bills against him or her. The case was heard on lengthy (and rather repetitious) testimony. The Chancellor found that the husband had deserted the wife and had been guilty of adultery.

He also found that the wife had been guilty of adultery. Recrimination being thus established, he denied a divorce to each party. The wife appealed; the husband did not. There is no ²⁵⁰ controversy over those portions of the decree which deal with the custody and support of the minor child, temporary alimony or a counsel fee allowed to the wife’s counsel.

Since the husband did not appeal or cross-appeal, we see no basis for reviewing the Chancellor’s findings adverse to him. Sprecher v. Sprecher, 206 Md. 108, 116 , 110 A. 2d 509 ; Schultz v. Keplan, 189 Md. 402, 416 , 56 A. 2d 17 ; Hammond v. Piper, 185 Md. 314, 321 , 44 A. 2d 756 ; Board of Education of Cecil Co. v. Lange, 182 Md. 132, 138 , 32 A. 2d 693 . (We may remark, however, that if the correctness of those findings were properly before us, the evidence would not warrant our disturbing them.) The question here is whether the Chancellor’s finding adverse to the wife should or should not be sustained. The testimony as to adultery by each of the spouses leaves, perhaps, less to inference than the evidence often does in cases of this type