Meléndez-Martínez v. Pérez-Díaz
Meléndez-Martínez v. Pérez-Díaz
Opinion of the Court
delivered tbe opinion of tbe court.
Tbe District Court of Aguadilla rendered jiidgment in th e present case sustaining tbe complaint in an action for divorce
That allegation of the complaint is sufficient, for if it is true that there was abandonment for more than one year, he has a cause of action for divorce according to subdivision 5 of section 164 of the Civil Code although no mention is made of the date of the abandonment, for it alleges the existence of the last fact, i. e. the lapse of more than a year, the acts showing abandonment for that time being a matter of evidence at the trial.
It is alleged as a second ground of appeal that the trial court allowed testimony at the trial in regard to the efforts made by the plaintiff to induce the wife to return to the conjugal home while the complaint contained no allegation in that sense; but it will be sufficient to say that the complaint alleges not only the act of abandonment, but also that the wife had the firm and deliberate intention not to live with her husband, which can be shown by his efforts to induce her to return to the abandoned home.
As a third ground of appeal it is said that the trial court committed error in weighing the evidence and in finding that abandonment for more than one year had been proved.
Although the appellant does not refer in her brief to the second part of that assignment of error, we have examined the evidence and find that two witnesses testified 'to abandonment for one year and a half; that it appears from documents exhibited by the wife at the trial that the complaint was filed after the lapse of one year and some months of separation, and that this fact does not appear to be contradicted by the defendant.
The appellant also calls attention in her brief to the fact that the plaintiff, having been informed on two occasions of his son’s illness in Ponce, did not go to visit him, he being a doctor; but it was shown that the first time he sent his assistant who testified that he found the boy playing in tbe street, and the second time the father asked Dr. Pila of Ponce by telephone to attend the boy. But even if the plaintiff had done nothing about the illness of his son, that would show lack of affection for his son and something more, but not that he had no cause of action for divorce.
The last ground of appeal is that the judgment is contrary to the evidence and the law.
We have seen that the judgment is not contrary to the evidence; nor is it contrary to the law, because in view of the facts found by the trial court the judgment appealed from is according to the law, for there was abandonment on the part of the wife for more than one year with the decided and proved purpose of not living with her husband, without any justification for her absence from the marital home.
The judgment appealed from must be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.