Scrimger v. Scrimger

Parke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appeal on this record is from a decree granting Weston B. Scrimger, plaintiff, an absolute divorce from Bessie R. Scrimger, defendant, on the ground of adultery, and awarding the custody and control of their six-year-old infant daughter to the father. The record is lengthy and the testimony recriminatory and concerned with a subject-matter whose vulgar details should be, as much as possible^ denied the printed pages of the reports. The court will therefore confine its opinion within this limitation.

The defendant was divorced by her first husband. The plaintiff here was the co-respondent, and afterwards married ⁴⁴³ the defendant on July 21st, 1920, when he was twenty years of age and the defendant was twenty-seven years old. When the defendant and her first husband separated, her then husband took the older child, and the other child, a son, who was about one year old when the present litigants were married, was kept by the mother, and has lived with the plaintiff and defendant since their marriage. The business affairs of the husband prospered and the domestic situation was happy until June, 1925, when the husband was sent to Birmingham, Ala., as the superintendent of one of the stores of his employer.

He left his wife in Baltimore, and she joined him six weeks later. The husband became suspicious of his wife’s fidelity in Baltimore during his absence in Alabama, and directed an investigation, which resulted in the discovery of letters which revealed an adulterous relation. When confronted with these letters, she admitted she was the writer and confessed her infidelity. The husband forgave her on her promise to be true to him, and they resumed their marital relations.

In September, 1925, the pair returned to Baltimore, and in February, 1927, their daughter was born. The plaintiff was promoted until he became the general superintendent of the business house by which he is employed. He bought a desirable house, furnished it with all modern conveniences, and maintained his home in comfort. His position gave him supervision of 371 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, and the performance of these duties required him travel every week in this territory, which caused him to be away, on an average, two nights of every week.

From September, 1925, until May 17th, 1932, the husband testified, his wife’s conduct had been without fault, and that she had during this period given him no cause to doubt her marital fidelity. However, on May 17th, 1932, the defendant was summoned to Harrisburg to investigate a shortage of over $1,000 in the receipts of one of the stores. He could not postpone this trip. Before he left he had, in the. afternoon, a telephone call from a person, whose identity was unknown to him, who gave him' information that what had been done at the parties given by ⁴⁴⁴ Lis wife while he was away from the latter part of March, 1932, was the subject of neighborhood gossip, and stated that another party was to take place on Thursday night, and told him to see his sister-in-law.

Although he had time, the plaintiff did not go to his home, nor did he see his wife, telephone to her, or send any message, but drove from Baltimore to Harrisburg in his automobile, arriving there about six o’clock in the evening. The husband testified that on his arrival in Harrisburg he immediately telephoned to his wife, and informed her that she should not have the party. His wife was surprised, and requested an explanation of her husband’s demand, and was told that he had received information about the parties which, if correct, would mean that he would not live at home long. The plaintiff had no further communication with his wife and remained in Harrisburg until Friday, when he left for Baltimore, arriving late that night, and did not go home, but spent the night with his father, although at that time he had heard nothing that affected his wife’s chastity.

The next morning he went to see his sister-in-law, Sadie Scrimger, wife of James O. ¡Scrimger, and, on the statements she made, as he testified, of friendly and indiscreet, but not meretricious, conduct of his wife with Levin, he went to see Philip Levin, a tailor and presser of cloths, who lived in Halethorpe, which was where the plaintiff had his home. The plaintiff accused Levin of criminal intimacy with the defendant, and Levin denied the accusation, and informed the plaintiff the charge was false. Failing in his effort to obtain an admission of guilt from Levin, the husband went to his house and took away his clothes by climbing through a window. His wife had gone with the two children to visit her sister; Anna Irene Riesette, and so the plaintiff went there and walked into the basement and saw his wife and an older sister, Louise Howell, sitting there.

Without speaking and without affording his wife an opportunity to explain ot deny the injudicious but intrinsically harmless conduct attributed to her by her sister-in-law, according to the plaintiff’s version of that interview, the husband went through the basement to see the two chil ⁴⁴⁵ dren, who