Decision Date: 19 October 1908
Docket Number: 202-1908
Citation: Russell v. Russell, 37 Pa.Super. 348 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1908)
Parties: Russell v. Russell, Appellant
Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court
Case Analysis
Powered by Vincent AI
?
Legal issue Can a course of non-violent indignities and humiliations by a spouse
constitute legal grounds for divorce due to cruelty?
Headnote
FAMILY LAW. DIVORCE FOR INDIGNITIES. The case involves an appeal from a decree
granting a divorce on the grounds that the husband's conduct subjected the wife to
indignities rendering her condition intolerable and life burdensome.
FAMILY LAW. EVIDENTIARY BURDEN IN DIVORCE CASES. The court considered
whether the evidence presented was sufficiently strong and convincing to justify a
divorce based on non-physical but continuous mental cruelty affecting the wife's health
and well-being.
Key Paragraphs
Highlight Key Paragraphs
“...While the early rule as announced in England and in some of the American states,
was, that mental suffering, distress or injury, and bodily injury resulting from mental
suffering were insufficient to constitute cruelty, yet the modern and better considered
cases have repudiated this doctrine as taking too low and sensual a view of the
marriage relation, and it is now very generally held, and has always been the rule in
Pennsylvania, that any unjustifiable conduct on the part of either the husband or the
wife which so grievously wounds the mental feelings of the other, or so utterly destroys
the peace of mind of the other as seriously to impair the bodily health or endanger the
life of the other, or which utterly destroys the legitimate ends and objects of matrimony
constitute cruelty, although no physical or personal violence may be inflicted, or even
threatened or reasonably apprehended: May v. May, 62 Pa. 206; Jones v. Jones, 66 Pa.
494; McMahen v. McMahen, 186 Pa. 485, 40 A. 795; Howe v. Howe, 16 Pa.Super. 193;
Schulze v. Schulze, 33 Pa.Super. 325; Fay v. Fay, 27 Pa.Super. 328; Barnsdall v.
Barnsdall, 171 Pa. 625, 33 A. 343....”
Key Phrases Indignities to the person. Libel for divorce. Mental suffering. Marital
unkindness. Legal cruelty.
37 Pa.Super. 348
Russell v. Russell, Appellant
No. 202-1908
Superior Court of Pennsylvania
October 19, 1908
Argued May 7, 1908
Appeal by defendant, from decree of C.P. No. 1, Allegheny
Co.-1903, No. 459, granting divorce in case of Maria F. Russell, by
her next friend, Emma H. Russell, v. Charles T. Russell.
Libel for divorce. Before MacFarlane, J.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.
Error assigned was decree granting divorce.
Affirmed.
J. McF. Carpenter, of Carpenter & Chalfant, with him W. M.
McJunkin, for appellant. -- Libelant wholly failed to make proof of
the facts essential to sustain the decree: Smith v. Smith, 15
Pa.Super. 366; Middleton v. Middleton, 187 Pa. 612; Richards v.
Richards, 37 Pa. 225; Rishel v. Rishel, 24 Pa.Super. 303; Schulze
v. Schulze, 33 Pa.Super. 325; Smith v. Smith, 19 Phila. 389;
Carter v. Carter, 1 Kulp, 359; Roth v. Roth, 15 Pa.Super. 192.
S. G. Porter, with him L. K. Porter and D. F. Patterson, for
appellee. -- The indignities need not be such as to endanger life or
health; it is sufficient if the course of treatment be of such a
character as to render the condition of any woman of ordinary
sensibility and delicacy of feeling intolerable and her life
burdensome: Krug v. Krug, 22 Pa.Super. 572.
Before Rice, P. J., Porter, Henderson, Morrison, Orlady, Head and
Beaver, JJ.
OPINION
ORLADY, J.
In the libel filed in this case, it is charged that the defendant
offered such indignities to the person of the libelant as to render
her condition intolerable and her life a burden, thereby
compelling her to withdraw from his home and family. In the
specification of indignities it is alleged that she was treated with
disrespect by the defendant in the presence of servants and
others; that insulting language was used to her; that the husband
circulated reports among her friends to the effect that she was of
unsound mind, and other stories that were calculated to affect her
character and her right to receive, entertain or visit friends, which
stories reflected upon her good name and moral character, and
that by words and actions he caused her to fear attempts would be
made on his part to have her deprived of her liberty; by reason of
which treatment she was kept in bodily fear, her health seriously
affected, her condition rendered intolerable and her life was made
burdensome.
The case was tried before the court and a jury and resulted in a
verdict in favor of the libelant. A motion for judgment non
obstante verdicto was overruled and a judgment was directed to
be entered on the verdict, from which the defendant appeals.
After a careful review of the 150 pages of testimony in this case,
we are satisfied that the verdict was fully warranted, and was
rightly sustained by refusing the defendant's motion. The effect to
be given to the verdict in such a case has been so recently
considered in Fay v. Fay, 27 Pa.Super. 328, that it is not
necessary to review the authorities therein cited in vindication of
that decision. As was said in that case, it is enough for us to say
that we have examined the whole body of evidence in the light of
the general principles relative to this cause for divorce, and whilst
it is conflicting in many particulars we are constrained to the
conclusion that the testimony of the libelant and her witnesses, if
believed by the jury, was sufficient to warrant them in finding the
facts essential to a lawful dissolution of the marriage tie. Here our
duty ends so far as the evidence is concerned.
The learned trial judge instructed the jury, that they were to be
satisfied, by the strength of the evidence, that such personal
indignities were put upon her, from time to time, continuously --
not occasionally -- but continuously, so as to render her condition
intolerable and life burdensome, and forced her to remove from
her husband's home. Which thought was repeated several times in
the charge. And further, that the intolerable conditions and
burdens which compelled her to withdraw, must not be on
account of her own faults, her own stubbornness, intellectually or
otherwise.
The appellant urges that it was error to submit the case to the jury
in the first instance, and second, that the court erred in the
general charge. In the two excerpts taken, which represent the
first and second assignments of error, the complete thought of the
trial judge is not fully set out, and these excerpts, taken in
connection with the fair and lucid explanation which precedes and
follows them, satisfies us that the charge of the court, taken as a
whole, was fair and adequate, and that it was fully understood by
the jury.
In an analysis of the testimony it is quite difficult to understand
the view of the respondent in regard to his duty as a husband to
his wife. From his standpoint, he doubtless felt that his rights as a
husband were radically different from the standards imposed
upon him by the law and recognized by all the courts of this
country. He stated to his wife, " I can show you a thousand women
that would be glad to be in your place and that would know my
wishes and do them." His estimation of his own importance is
gathered from his statement to a friend: " I have been approached
twice by parties who contemplate the organization of a large bank
in Pittsburg, with a capital of three million dollars, and have been
solicited to permit my name to be used in connection with the
organization as its prospective president," and to another friend, "
After reading 'The Plan of the Ages' people say, Brother Russel is
great! I will go to Allegheny and be near this great man! When
they get to Allegheny they find Brother Russel makes no claim to
greatness, and merely claims that it is God's word that is
wonderful. He reasons the matter to them as though it were a
question in mathematics; and when they hear the answer, they
say, 'how simple,'" and many like expressions of self-esteem
pervade his testimony. Letters to friends furnish some idea of his
own estimation of his character. He repeatedly states that he is
not self-conceited, but meek and not boastful, and writes that two
phrenologists had examined his head and assured him that he was
deficient in self-esteem. From his whole testimony, it would seem
that he was right in reaching the conclusion stated by him in a
letter to his wife, to wit: " I conclude that I am adapted to no one,
and that no one is adapted to me, except the Lord. I am thankful
that He and I understood each other and have confidence in each
other. The last month has fastened the conviction upon me much
against my will. I am convinced that our difficulty is a growing
one generally -- that it is a great mistake for strong-minded men
and women to marry."
From this view point his conduct is at least consistent, and he
would naturally feel warranted in feeling that any doubt as to the
correctness of his views or conclusions, would be due to plots and
schemes on the part of his wife; that his wife was a blasphemer, or
as he stated it, " One of two things is certain, either my wife has
become mentally unbalanced, or else she has become possessed of
a most wicked spirit."
It is apparent from the testimony of each, that each had strong
convictions as to the correct interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
They were engaged in the publication of a newspaper called "
Zion's Watch Tower," and the " Millennial Dawn," the " Watch
Tower Bible," tracts and pamphlets.
His course of conduct toward his wife evidenced such insistent
egotism and extravagant self-praise that it would be manifest to
the jury that his conduct towards her was one of continual
arrogant domination, that would necessarily render the life of any
sensitive Christian woman a burden and make her condition
intolerable. The indignities offered to her in treating her as a
menial in the presence of servants, intimating that she was of
unsound mind, and that she was under the influence of designing
and wicked persons fully warranted her withdrawal from his
house, and justified her fear that he intended to further humiliate
her by a threat to resort to legal proceedings to test her sanity.
There is not a syllable in the testimony to justify his repeated
aspersions on her character or her mental condition, nor does he
intimate in any way that there was any cause for difference
between them, other than that she did not agree with him in his
views of life and methods of conducting their business. He says
himself that she is a woman of high intellectual qualities and of
perfect moral character. While he denied, in a general way, that he
attempted to belittle his wife as she claimed, the general effect of
his own testimony is a strong confirmation of her allegations.
In Butler v. Butler, 1 Parsons' Select Equity Cases, 329, decided in
1849, after a careful review of precedent authorities, Judge King
says, " A husband may by a course of humiliating insults and
annoyances practiced in various forms which ingenious malice
could readily devise, eventually destroy the life or health of his
wife, although such conduct may be unaccompanied by violence,
positive or threatened. Would a wife have no remedy in such
circumstances, under our divorce laws, because actual or
threatened personal violence formed no element in such cruelty?
The answer to this question seems free from difficulty when the
subject is considered with reference to the principles on which the
divorce for cruelty are predicated.
The courts intervene to dissolve the marriage bond for the
conservation of the life or health of the wife endangered by the
treatment of the husband. The cruelty is judged from its effects,
not solely from the means by which those effects are produced. To
hold absolutely that if a husband avoids positive or threatened
personal violence that a wife has no legal protection against any
means short of those which he may resort to, and which may
destroy her life or health, is to invite such a system of infliction by
the indemnity given the wrongdoer. The more rational application
of the doctrine of cruelty is to consider a course of marital
unkindness with reference to the effect it must necessarily
produce on the life or health of the wife, and if it has been such as
affect or injure either to regard it as true legal cruelty. This
doctrine seems to have been in the view of Sir H. Zeimer Just in
Dysart v. Dysart, when he stated that he deduces as an inference
from what Sir William Scott ruled in Evans v. Evans, that, " If
austerity of temper, petulance of manner, rudeness of language, a
want of civil attention, occasional sallies of passion, do threaten
bodily harm, they do amount to a legal cruelty." This idea as
expressed axiomatically would be no less than the assertion of this
principle; that whatever form marital ill-treatment assumes if a
continuity of it involves the life or health of the wife, it is legal
cruelty."
While the early rule as announced in England and in some of the
American states, was, that mental suffering, distress or injury, and
bodily injury resulting from mental suffering were insufficient to
constitute cruelty, yet the modern and better considered cases
have repudiated this doctrine as taking too low and sensual a view
of the marriage relation, and it is now very generally held, and has
always been the rule in Pennsylvania, that any unjustifiable
conduct on the part of either the husband or the wife which so
grievously wounds the mental feelings of the other, or so utterly
destroys the peace of mind of the other as seriously to impair the
bodily health or endanger the life of the other, or which utterly
destroys the legitimate ends and objects of matrimony constitute
cruelty, although no physical or personal violence may be
inflicted, or even threatened or reasonably apprehended: May v.
May, 62 Pa. 206; Jones v. Jones, 66 Pa. 494; McMahen v.
McMahen, 186 Pa. 485, 40 A. 795; Howe v. Howe, 16 Pa.Super.
193; Schulze v. Schulze, 33 Pa.Super. 325; Fay v. Fay, 27
Pa.Super. 328; Barnsdall v. Barnsdall, 171 Pa. 625, 33 A. 343. To
warrant the granting of a divorce on the ground of the conduct on
the part of either the husband or wife, as to render the condition
of the other party intolerable and life burdensome, where there is
no proof of overt bodily harm actually inflicted or threatened, the
evidence should be strong and convincing, the course of illtreatment
complained of must have been long continued, and of a
serious character. The conditions exacted by these decisions, have
been fully and clearly met by the libelant, and the proof adduced
by her on the trial fully warranted the verdict rendered. No error
being found in the record the assignments of error are overruled
and the judgment is affirmed.
Documents found at https://app.vlex.com/vid/900317034