Maryland Divorce Abandonment Marital Relations Cost Lawyers Attorneys

Maryland Divorce Abandonment Marital Relations Cost Lawyers Attorneys

by

Atchuthan Sriskandarajah

VERONICA E. FRIES v. JOHN FRIES. JOHN FRIES v. VERONICA E. FRIES.

Nos. 42, 43, 44

COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND

166 Md. 604; 171 A. 703; 1934 Md. LEXIS 67

FACTS:

Defendant wife challenged a decree and an order of the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City (Maryland). The decree granted plaintiff husband a divorce. The order required him to pay part of the cost of the record on appeal and allowed her a counsel fee, but she felt that the

allowance

was inadequate. The husband appealed from the decree because the chancellor did not find the wife guilty of adultery as well as of desertion.

ISSUES:

The issues here are whether wife s refusal of marital relations for over three years amounted to desertion and whether the costs awarded to husband are reasonable.

DISCUSSION:

A husband who had obtained an absolute divorce for desertion cannot appeal because the chancellor failed to find the wife guilty of adultery. The fact that the husband refused to give to his wife as large a proportion of his wages as she desired did not justify her refusal of

marital

intercourse, and such refusal constituted desertion. The wife’s desertion of her husband by unjustified refusal of marital intercourse, continuing uninterruptedly for more than three years, deliberate and final, without any reasonable hope of reconciliation, entitled the husband to a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. In the passage of an order granting a wife a counsel fee of twenty-five dollars, and fifty dollars towards the expenses of appeal, after having granted the husband a divorce a vinculo for desertion, the chancellor was in the exercise of his discretion, and such order should not be reversed unless his discretion was shown to be arbitrarily used or his judgment clearly wrong.

JUDGMENT:

The court dismissed the husband’s appeal with costs to the husband. The court affirmed the decree and order with costs to be paid by the husband because there was a reasonable basis for the appeal by the wife and because of her financial condition.

Disclaimer:

These summaries are provided by the SRIS Law Group. They represent the firm s unofficial views of the Justices opinions. The original opinions should be consulted for their authoritative content

Atchuthan Sriskandarajah is a Virginia lawyer and owner of the SRIS Law Group. The SRIS Law Group has offices in

Virginia

, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina & California. The firm handles criminal/traffic defense, family law, immigration & bankruptcy cases.

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