Cattison versus Cattison

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania1853

22 Pa. 275

Summary · law.co

Holding. The judgment of the trial court was affirmed, as the jury's verdict that the respondent suffered mistreatment sufficient to relieve her of willful and malicious desertion satisfied the legal standard that justification for a wife's abandonment must constitute independent grounds for divorce.

A husband sought a divorce on grounds that his wife had willfully and maliciously deserted him for over two years without justification. The wife defended herself by claiming her husband's violent behavior, including a knife assault in July 1847, cruel treatment, and intemperate habits made her living situation unbearable and forced her to leave. At trial, the husband waived his right to demand specific details about the alleged cruelty and instead entered a general denial. The jury found that the wife had indeed suffered treatment that relieved her of the obligation to remain with her husband, thus finding her desertion was not willful and malicious.

On appeal, the husband argued that the standard applied was incorrect—that any justification for a wife leaving must itself be grounds for divorce. The appellate court agreed the rule was sound but found it satisfied here, as the conduct the wife described would constitute valid grounds for divorce under law. Because the jury's verdict necessarily encompassed a finding that the alleged conduct occurred, it met the required legal standard. The court also upheld the admission of the wife's statements made the night she fled, as these were properly admissible to explain the circumstances and motives behind her departure.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Whether a wife's desertion can be justified by the husband's cruel treatment
What legal standard determines whether grounds justifying desertion are sufficiently serious
Admissibility of a spouse's statements made contemporaneously with desertion to explain motives

Procedural posture

This is an appeal from a jury verdict in a divorce action brought by the husband for willful and malicious desertion, which the wife contested by alleging cruel treatment by the husband.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Woodward, J.

The libellant charged that his wife had wilfully and maliciously deserted his habitation without any just or reasonable cause, for two years and upwards; and on this ground prayed for a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. In her answer she denies the wilful and malicious desertion, and assigns as the cause of her leaving him, his violent temper, intemperate habits, and repeated indignities to her person which had embittered her life; and especially that on the first day of July, 1847, he assaulted her with a knife in his hand, hurt her, and drove her off, and was guilty of other cruel and barbarous treatment of such enormity as to make her condition intolerable, and her life burthensome, and thereby forced her to withdraw from his house.

As to the general charges of barbarous treatment contained in this answer, the libellant would have been entitled to demand specifications of time, place, and circumstance, before joining issue; but he waived this right, and put in a general replication denying the truth of the “ matter and things in the respondent’s plea, alleged in bar of his libel,” and on this issue demanded a jury.

On the trial no particular instruction was asked, and the Court submitted to the jury the question whether the respondent had suffered such treatment as acquitted her of wilful and malicious desertion from her duty and her husband’s roof, and they found that she had.

On an issue made up and tried in this manner, the questions argued here do not arise. The rule contended for by the plaintiff in error may be conceded: that the reasonable cause which would justify a wife in abandoning her husband must be such as would entitle her to a divorce. The answer is, all that is found by the verdict.

It will not be disputed that the matters alleged in the respondent’s answer would, under the Act of Assembly, be cause of divorce. Sitting in a Court of error, we are obliged to assume that these matters have been found; so that, according to the strictest application of the rule contended for, they were sufficient to justify her desertion, or, at the least, to take away from it the wilful and malicious aspect which the statute requires it to bear in order toentitle him to a divorce. Whether the acts proved amounted to such cruel treatment as justified her desertion, is a question that does not arise on the record, and therefore we do not decide it. The Court below expressed no opinion on this point, and not being asked to do so, the omission is not assignable for error, for it has been often ruled that want of direction, not asked for, is not error: McClure v. McClure, 1 Barr 374; Churchman v. Smith, 6 Wh. 146; Burns v. Sutherland, 7 Barr 108.

We think the evidence contained in the bills of exception was properly admitted. The declarations of the wife, the night of her flight, were so connected with the principal fact under investigation as to be competent as part of the res gestee. In Rawson v. Haigh, 2 Bing. 99, cited by Mr. Grreenleaf, letters written during absence from home, were admitted as original evidence explanatory of the nature of thé departure and absence, the departure and absence being regarded as one continuing act. Here the declarations were much more immediately connected with the act of departure than the letters in that case, and were full as worthy evidence, explanatory of the motives of the party.

The judgment is affirmed.