Whiffen v. Whiffen
Whiffen v. Whiffen
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This is an appeal from a decree granting a divorce a. v. m. to a husband on the ground of cruel and barbarous treatment.
The master’s findings indicate that he believed the testimony on behalf of libellant and disbelieved that of the respondent. In examining the record we are obliged to differ with the master in a number of material matters of fact.
The testimony shows that libellant was partly responsible for the domestic difficulties. He was getting stout; she mentioned it and he became very resentful; she became pregnant; he was very much hurt when she accused him of being the cause of her condition; she did not like some of his friends and told him so; she did not like Duquesne, with its smoke and dirt, and said so; when the time of her confinement approached she went, ivith his consent, to stay at the home of her foster parents in Rochester, New York; he went there to see her and, during the course of some remarks about his mother, became highly incensed because, in the heat of the argument, she told him to go home; his father took the baby out and let the sun shine in its eyes; libellant could not understand why his wife should object; she did not like the summer heat of the Pittsburgh district, and went to spend the summer with her parents in Rochester in the summer of 1916; these were the two occasions when she is found to have wilfully left her husband; he brought company home to a meal without warning to his Avife and was surprised that she objected to the sudden visitation ; he felt much abused that he should be compelled to perform such menial duties as scrub, wash dishes, and dust rugs, when his wife was unable to attend to these duties when suffering from the discomforts of pregnancy,
It would serve no useful purpose to review or consider the cases involving cruel and barbarous treatment at the complaint of the husband. Where the decree was granted, something more than the negative acts testified to in the present case existed such as threats against the husband’s life, continual nagging in public, imputing incompetence in business, unchastity charged, actual physical violence, not necessarily endangering the husband’s life, the prosecution of the husband in numerous legal actions, a self-induced condition of mind, the result of the use of drugs, causing such acts to be done, which condition continues for long periods with no signs of improvement, or some positive and continued course of action in pursuance of a malicious intent to his harm: Fay v. Id., 27 Pa. Superior Ct. 328; Shaw v. Id., 36 Pa. Superior Ct. 122; Egolf v. Id., 53 Pa. Superior Ct. 254; Mamaux v. Id., 64 Pa. Superior Ct. 131; Ponthus v. Id., 66 Pa. Superior Ct. 257.
An examination of the following cases will show that the decree, granted in this case, cannot be sustained: Johnson v. Id., 31 Pa. Superior Ct. 53; Schulze v. Id., 33 Pa. Superior Ct. 325; Platt v. Id., 38 Pa. Superior Ct. 551; Hexamer v. Id., 42 Pa. Superior Ct. 226; Biddle v. Id., 50 Pa. Superior Ct. 30; Hill v. Id., 57 Pa. Superior Ct. 1; Aikens v. Id., 57 Pa. Superior Ct. 424; Cunningham v. Id., 60 Pa. Superior Ct. 622; Lewis v. Id., 63 Pa. Superior Ct. 82. We are of the opinion, after a careful reading of the entire record of upwards of four hundred pages, that libellant has failed to establish the necessary facts to warrant a decree in his favor.
The decree of the court below is reversed, the libel dismissed, and it is ordered that libellant pay the costs in this court and in the court below.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.